A story that yields to sentiment

Take it as a tribute to actress Gemma Arterton that a movie as contrived and maudlin as Summerland could be even the least bit watchable. Theater director Jessica Swale makes her big-screen debut with a story about an academic writer (Arterton) living in a remote coastal town in England.  Set mostly in the 1940s, the story begins in earnest when Arterton's Alice Lamb is taken by surprise: An escort brings a boy (Lucas Bond) to her home. The reclusive, acerbic Lamb has no interest in the boy who has been shipped from London as part of a program to save the city's children from the Blitz.  Eventually, Alice warms to the boy and him to her with Arterton doing her best to keep Alice from becoming a one-note character. As the story proceeds, we see flashbacks to a time when Alice established a relationship with a young woman (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) awakened Alice to life's possibilities before declining the invitation to a long-term relationship. Mbatha-Raw's character couldn't imagine a life without children. More an emblem than a character, Mbatha-Raw has little to do beyond looking luminous. The interactions between Alice and Frank -- her new charge -- are well-handled but the movie concludes with a couple of dubious twists, one that milks emotions and the other that strains credibility. Penelope Wilton portrays the aging Alice in opening and closing scenes and the movie features Tom Courtenay as a gentle, compassionate small-town man. Swale mostly ignores social responses to lesbian love during less tolerant days, makes little reference to race, and seems most interested in providing a cinematic massage to soothe troubled spirits. I kept wondering whether the thorny, evidence-driven character Arterton creates possibly could have made it through the soggy third act.

'BFG' is a bit of a bore

The magic is only intermittent in director Steven Spielberg's adaptation of a Roald Dahl story..

The real giant behind the movie The BFG is Steven Spielberg, a director whose amazing track record ranges from the serious to the sublimely whimsical. Inspired by a story by Roald Dahl, Spielberg abandons the brooding intelligence of his last movie -- Bridge of Spies -- to focus on a tale aimed at children.

With a screenplay by ET screenwriter, the late Melissa Mathieson, The BFG centers on young Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), a lonely orphan who early on is whisked off to a giant's lair. Thanks to his vegetarian preferences, the giant -- known as the BFG or Big Friendly Giant -- doesn't eat little kids. He dines on glop that bares little resemblance to food as we know it.

A generally affable sort, the BFG frequently finds himself at odds with his monstrous giant colleagues who do like to gobble up kids. These bad giants look like floating ogres in a Thanksgiving Day parade. Very frightening -- if, say, you're five years old.

Younger audiences may also respond to the movie's fart jokes. The BFG aids his digestion with a drink called Frobscottle, a fizzy brew that gives him gas inducing bouts of flatulence that he calls "whizpoppers."

All of this offers mild amusement with Spielberg obtaining fine, motion-capture work from Mark Rylance as the BFG; Rylance, you'll recall, won a supporting actor Oscar for his work in Bridge of Spies.

An unlikely duo, Sophie and the BFG spend lots of time together at the BFG's home in Giant Country. Unfortunately, this house-bound part of the movie becomes a bit of slog and early enchantment gives way to monotony.

The movie perks up significantly during a late-picture tea party attended by Sophie, the BFG and the Queen of England (Penelope Wilton). Finally, you may think, some fun.

Spielberg ably handles the technical challenges of Dahl's story, and the movie's production design has an admirable story-book quality.

Ultimately, though, story takes a back seat to tricks of scale. Spielberg and his crew must have had a great time playing with size differences between young Sophie and those who inhabit Giant Country. The movie is at its best when the BFG enters the world of normal humans, puny in comparison to the big guys.

Dull as it can be, the movie deserves credit for at least one bold stroke: A fart joke in Buckingham Palace unwinds with whizpopping gusto. But much of the movie drags in ways that seem uncharacteristic of Spielberg who usually sets a brisk pace.

For all his prowess, Spielberg can't carve a giant-sized slice of charm out of The BFG.

A great cast checks into this hotel

Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson paint portraits of characters in their twilight years..

In a season when most movies spend inordinate amounts of money creating adolescent thrill rides, a film that delivers a pep talk to the geezer crowd almost immediately qualifies as worthy -- if only from counter-programming point of view. Before you knock over your Metamucil, know that I'm old enough to disqualify myself from accusations of ageism. If I'm not a full-fledged geezer, I'm certainly a geezer in training.

Let me be even more specific. I'm older than both Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson, who -- in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel -- play characters who have stumbled into a post-retirement twilight zone.

A terrific British ensemble cast -- Judi Dench and Maggie Smith join Nighy and Wilkinson -- helps overcome some of the sentiment that inevitably bubbles through a movie that insists on telling us that it's never too late for ... well ... something.

Maybe romance. If not romance, maybe a bargain-priced hip replacement. And if not that, perhaps a swan song roll in the hay.

Director John Madden -- who can hit wonderfully right notes (Shakespeare in Love) as well as obvious clinkers (Captain Corelli's Mandolin) -- follows a group of seven Brits to a shabby hotel in Jaipur, India.

It's instructive to compare Madden's movie to last week's Darling Companion, another movie populated by characters in their '60s. I wouldn't call Madden's movie a triumph, but at least it springs from more than marriage ennui among the affluent, a prime focus in director Lawrence Kasdan's movie. The characters in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel face real problems of aging: diminished income, ravaged nest eggs, ill health and loneliness.

Thats' not to say that Madden's movie wouldn't have been better had it not treated the woes of aging quite so dutifully, almost as if compiling a checklist for a late-life self-help book.

Working from a script by Ol Parker, who adapted a novel by Deborah Moggach, Madden puts his capable cast to best use when it comes to delivering sharp dialog or sharing tender moments. He also understands that India offers a rich and colorful backdrop for a story in which each character overcomes at least one problem.

Examples: Wilkinson's Graham, a sad and emotionally burdened gay man, tries to rectify a mistake he made in his youth; Dench's character is dealing with the travails of recent widowhood; Smith plays a bigoted woman who has come to Jaipur as a medical tourist. She needs a hip replacement.

Living in India has its difficulties. One couple exemplifies opposing responses to a land of heat, spice, poverty, beauty and exuberant street life: Dogulas (Nighy) learns to delight in the city's pleasures. By way of contrast, his embittered wife (Penelope Wilton) complains about the food and refuses to leave her hotel room.

Libidos don't always go gently into the good night of old age. Norman, the aptly named Ronald Pickup, is looking for a last fling. Celia Imrie would like to find a rich husband.

The cheerfully chaotic young man (Dev Patel) who runs the hotel is prone to exaggerating the splendor of its amenities, which mostly are non-existent.

Patel's Sonny Kapoor has his own troubles. He's romantically involved with a young woman (Tena Desae) who works at a call center. Sonny's mom (Lillete Dubey) opposes her son's relationship with Desae's character, and wants to sell the hotel, which she views as both a social embarrassment and a financial burden.

There's no faulting any of the performances, and there's enough wit and humanity in the screenplay to keep The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel from turning smarmy. And if -- in the end -- it's a bit of a fantasy for the over 60 crowd ... well ... not everyone wants to groove on The Avengers.