The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Britain 2012) – Redeeming the Time – An Overview

A group of retired British pensioners move to a retirement hotel in India and there are forced to come to terms with their lives, their pasts, their present, and their futures.

Questions for Reflection about the Film:
– In American Buddhism there is the saying: Wherever you go there you are. How does the film reveal this insight?
– There are two lines in the film. The first says: We must celebrate the changes, because, as someone once said, everything will be all right in the end, and if it’s not all right, then trust me, it is not the end. The second says: We get up in the morning and we do our best, and nothing else matters. Can you see the radical difference between these two outlooks. How do these two perspectives impact upon your life?
– Another quotation: The only real failure is the failure to try, and the measure of success is how we cope with disappointment. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement using your own life as a measure?
– This is a film about perspectives. Thus,
Jean Ainslie: How can you bear this country? What do you see, that I don’t?
Graham Dashwood: The light, colors, smiles; it teaches me something.
– Are the perspectives in this film average to humanity?
– How does the film affirm/challenge/deny your view of reality?

Questions for Prayer and Reflection:
– What moments in the film touched you, and what do those moments say about your life at this time?
– What happens when you sit with those moments in prayer?
– How has your understanding of your relationship with God changed since praying through this series?
– What is the invitation offered to you at this time when you pray through this series?
– How will you respond concretely to that invitation?
– How do you experience concretely God’s intimacy with you?
– What are the areas of vulnerability in your past, your present, and in your future?
– How do you live your expectancy in these areas?

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This reflection is taken from  www.fgitd.ca -a website which was developed to deal with current films and with further insights into the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. 

Finding God In the Dark: Taking the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to the Movies (Novalis) by Canadian Jesuits, John Pungente and Monty Williams, answered a need for those looking to have access to their spiritual life but who did not have access to spiritual direction.  The web site  – www.fgitd.ca – continues this work. Please go to the web site for further material on the theme of the reflection.

The 2013 series –  Redeeming the Time – available on the web-site  www.fgitd.ca  allows users to explore the ways in which God uses our responses to our past, how we live today, and how we anticipate what is coming, to develop a deeper spiritual intimacy with God.   Earlier series – beginning in 2005 – are archived on the site. Check it out . . it could change your life.