Blonde, beautiful and brattish, Marigold Lexton (Ali Larter) is a self-absorbed, snarky, sassy D-movie star who gets stranded in India when her latest movie – Kama Sutra 3 – folds. Lying about her musical abilities, she blags her way onto the set of a glorious Bollywood film where she falls for the terribly decent and earnest choreographer (Salman Khan). He’s a prince. No really, he is!! After a cracking start, it’s pretty much downhill from there on in.
From the beaches of Goa, to a strangely clean and technicolor Mumbai to the remarkable Rajasthan, the film does well enough to blend Hollywood with Bollywood, without going to the trouble of explaining either. But disappointingly, Marigold isn’t quite the jolly jape it could be. Larter is lovely, but Marigold’s transformation from arrogant starlet to woman in love is more baffling than believable – and it happens too early in the plot to sustain the rest of the drama.
In the end, I wished that Marigold had been directed by Gurinder Chadha, with the kind of robust colour and vibrancy and and energy and flair of her Bride and Prejudice.