The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a rom-sitcom in which the "sit" is a group of middle-class British folk in late middle age come to eke out their pensions at a small hotel in Jaipur. The "com" is produced by the predictable mishaps and embarrassments they experience, and the "rom" arises from their little affairs and their confrontation with the subcontinental culture. There are seven characters, each with a single dominant characteristic like figures in Jacobean or Restoration comedy, and played by a seasoned veteran of the British theatre: Judi Dench and Celia Imrie as contrasted widows; Maggie Smith in her cockney Downstairs mode; Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton as a bickering couple; Ronald Pickup as a Viagra-fuelled common-or-garden rake; Tom Wilkinson as a gay high-court judge in search of his lost Indian love of his far-off schooldays. The hotel is a dilapidated mansion run by the timid Indian son of an overbearing mother who refuses to countenance her son's affair with a gorgeous girl from a local call centre. No one pays much attention to the local world except for the occasional reference to visiting a "fabulous temple" (which we never see) and the would-be Casanova perusing the Kama Sutra.

In a glum opening sequence designed to contrast dreary old England with colourful, exotic India, a pushy estate agent refers, somewhat implausibly, to "the grey pound", and it's this economic demographic the film sets out to attract and appeal to. Provided they don't mind being patronised and stereotyped by a shallow but not wholly untruthful film, then this target audience will be satisfied. If, however, you're of a certain age and looking for a 20th-century Passage to India or something in the manner of Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala or another Jewel in the Crown, don't sign on for this particular cruise.