My Beautiful Laundrette
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Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Derrick Branche, Gordon Warnecke, Roshan Seth, Saeed JaffreyBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-06-03
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of My Beautiful Laundrette
DVD Review: My Beautiful Laundrette
Summary: 4 Stars
My Beautiful Laundrette is directed by Stephen Frears, the director behind one of my favorite films (Dangerous Liaisons) and several other good ones (High Fidelity, Mary Reilly, and The Queen to name a few). The film features an Oscar-nominated script by Hanif Kureishi and an early, stand-out performance by two-time Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor, My Left Foot & There Will Be Blood).
The setting is a racially-tense neighborhood in Thatcher-ear London. Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young Pakistani who starts working for his uncle washing cars. Omar is soon allowed to run his uncle's shabby, run-down laundrette. It's around this time that Omar encounters childhood friend Johnny (Day-Lewis), a hood who runs with a small group of fascists who enjoy provoking racial violence. Omar hires Johnny to help up him fix up the laundrette with drug money he has stolen from his uncle's associate Salim.
It is soon revealed that Omar and Johnny are gay...And Salim discovers where his drugs went and Omar opens more laundrettes. None of these things will surprise you. They weren't meant to admittedly, but what this entire film seems to be is a rather complicated story told as a standard in a 94-minute timeframe.
The film's script follows a very linear plot. This, juxtaposed with the unnecessary changes in tone, makes the screenplay the weakest element of the film. It's a film that wants to explore themes of social and ethnic classes, as well as sexuality, but it never really says much on the subject. As if Kureishi knew these were important issues but didn't know why. It doesn't work as an exploration of these subjects and it's a rather complex story that had been formatted into a much more simplistic one. It made me question what exactly the screenwriter's intention was.
Beyond that, it's not particularly well-made. It has very dated near-grainy cinematography and some synthesizer music used as the score, which seems inappropriate in some of the scenes. Many films directed by Frears seem very dated due largely in part to his use of cinematography. "Mary Reilly" looks and feels much older than 1996 (this has nothing to do with its timeframe) and "The Queen" looks to glossy and done-up (another Miramax film called "Casanova" suffered the same problem).
If anything, I can see My Beautiful Laundrette causing a stir in 1985 when it was released especially with its depiction of Omar and Johnny's homosexual relationship. This brings me to my next subject...
This is not a gay-themed movie such as Brokeback Mountain. While "Brokeback" has a central theme of homosexuality and its very plot relies on it, My Beautiful Laundrette does not. It is not about two homosexual men but rather, two men who happen to be homosexual. If all the scenes of Omar and Johnny being intimate were removed from the film, it would have little or no effect on the overall story.
The best, most consistent thing about the film is the subtle, moving performance of Daniel Day-Lewis. This is not Bill the Butcher or Daniel Plainview; this is Day-Lewis in neutral. It's a performance that shows off his range as an actor and his ability to completely immerse himself in a role, big or small. He's one of the few well-known actors who walk on-screen and allow you to instantly identify the character rather than the actor. I can imagine Day-Lewis viewing that as a compliment of the highest order.
My Beautiful Laundrette is not a powerful, profound, or particularly moving film. It is neither a failure nor any real kind of achievement. It does not require an audience nor is it undeserving of one. It's simply there. Neither good nor bad, neither entertaining nor boring, but available...Should you decide to watch it.
B-
Side-Note: Hanif Kureishi did write the screenplay for one of my favorite movies of the last few years, "Venus" with Peter O'Toole. This is a film that wanted to explore a particular subject (in this case, death, among other things) and succeeded.
Description of My Beautiful Laundrette
With its "extraordinary cast" (Los Angeles Times)including OscarĀ(r) winner* Daniel Day Lewisand "riveting visual style" (Newsweek), this "warm, compassionate and feisty" film (The Hollywood Reporter) about a young Pakistani man coming of age in London is "a fascinating, eccentric [and] very personal movie" (The New York Times)! Living on the dole with his alcoholic father in a shabby South London flat, Omar is a bright-eyed Pakistani teenager who wants to make something of himself. And as his papa drowns deeper in vodka and self-pity, Omar turns to his unscrupulous wheeling-and-dealing Uncle Nasser to show him the key to success. But when Nasser hires Omar as manager of a seedy, dilapidated laundromat, Omar is forced to choose between running a squeaky-clean establishmentor conducting some very dirty business! *1989: Actor,My Left FootBestsellers in DVD
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