I don't know if there's another film that better epitomizes the class conflicts and other kinds of social turmoil that were inherent in the Thatcher reign, during the eighties. This film captures that era but in ways that we can still learn from today.

Historical Background: English director Stephen Frears was born June 20th, 1941, in Leicester, England. He learned his directorial craft as an assistant to Lindsay Anderson, first at the Royal Court Theatre and later during the filming of If… (1968) and O Lucky Man! (1973). In the late sixties, he also worked as assistant director under Karel Reisz (Morgan (1968)) and Albert Finney (Charlie Bubbles (1968)). So, when it came time to direct his own first films, Gumshoe (1972) and Bloody Kids (1980), Frears had accumulated a variety of influences. During most of the seventies, Frears worked in television. It was not until the mid-eighties that Frears made his first major mark in cinema, with the film here under review, My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). Frears later also made good in Hollywood with two major successes, Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and The Grifters (1990). I am personally very fond of the latter film and especially recommend George Chabot's Review for your edification. Frears received an Oscar nomination as Best Director for The Grifters. Frears is widely respected for his ability to deal with socially aware themes while retaining a central focus on entertainment. He also has a rare ability to handle complex themes without dumbing them down.

The Story: Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young man of Pakistani ethnicity, living in London. He's more Westernized than not. He doesn't even speak the old language of his people, though he retains strong ties with his extended family. His mother committed suicide a while back and his Papa (Roshan Seth) is alcoholic. Papa had been a leftist journalist in Pakistan, but Britain has no need for socialist, Pakistani writers. Omar is in need of a job for the summer and perhaps longer if he doesn't return to school. Papa places a call to his brother, Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey), who is a successful businessman, owning, along with his business partner, Salim (Derrick Branche), a string of parking garages and some shops.

Omar starts out washing cars but quickly impresses his uncle with his industriousness and smarts. For his part, Omar is impressed by his uncle's monetary success and with all that goes with it. Nasser has a beautiful home, a Pakistani wife, Bilquis (Charu Bala Chokshi), three lovely daughters, and an Anglo mistress named Rachel (Shirley Anne Field), with whom he shares carnal delights at the garage, during the afternoons. Omar is invited to his uncle's house for a family party and the middle daughter, Tania (Rita Wolf), takes an immediate shine to him. She's not shy about letting him know, either. As she escorts him to the den where her father is meeting with other men of the family, she insists that he come looking for her later. Then, as Omar is being introduced to the men, he spots Tania outside the bay window, behind the other men but in Omar's direct line of sight. She pulls up her pullover and flashes her breasts at him. Omar, however, has other things on his mind. Uncle Nasser wants Omar to work at one of his laundromats, cleaning up and the like, but Omar talks his uncle into letting him manage the place.

As the party is breaking up, Salim is too drunk to drive, so Omar is enlisted to chauffeur for Salim and his wife Cherry (Souad Faress). As they are passing through one of the seedier parts of London, they are set upon by a gang of white, punk, neo-fascists, out for a night of Pakistani bashing. The hatred of the poor Anglos for the Pakistanis is based in part on the Anglos being displaced in the old neighborhoods by the more successful Pakistanis. As the car with Omar, Salim, and Cherry is being pounded on and the occupants mooned, Salim spots the group's leader standing in the background and recognizes him as an old friend, Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). Omar and Johnny had known each other since they were five and, for a few years as adolescents, were even lovers. Omar and Johnny are both gay. Later, their friendship and romance had deteriorated when Johnny and his friends had become increasing hostile toward the ever-growing Pakistani immigrant population in the city. Johnny is poor white trash, without a job or even a job prospect. The next day, Omar finds Johnny and hires him to help out at the laundrette. Johnny's friends are disgusted that he would work for a "wog," saying, "Why are you working for him? They were brought here to work for us." Johnny's friends are unaware that the arrangement offers Johnny the fringe benefit of a love relationship with his boss.

So, the conflicts are now established. There's the interracial tension between the Anglos and the Pakistanis. There's a gay vs. straight issue, especially because Nasser, not knowing about Omar's sexual orientation, wants him to marry Tania. There're the two young men, Omar and Johnny, trying to make a success of the laundrette, stealing "capital" from Salim's smuggling operation to spiff the place up. Then, there's Uncle Nasser cheating on his wife and the crisis that develops when Nasser's mistress Rachel inadvertently comes face to face with Nasser's daughter, Tania. How all of these interlocking threads plays out you'll have to discover for yourself.

Themes: The overriding concern of this film is how making money became the raison d'etre in Thatcher England. For the upwardly mobile, it was a time of unprecedented opportunity, with government grants available as startup money for new businesses. For those left behind, it was a time of unprecedented grief and alienation. Everyone in this film is an outsider, one way or another. Some, in fact, are outsiders in more than one way. Whether by dint of being lower class, Pakistani, female, or gay, each of the characters in this film is striving for a safe haven in a turbulent society. The only possible means available for reaching that goal is monetary. Frears shows us a society where opposing ethnic groups fight over housing, men and women compete for the same sex partners, wives battle mistresses, natives hate immigrants, and the immigrants hate the poor whites.

Production Values: The script for this film was adapted by Hanif Kureishi from his own stage play. Kureishi was a man of mixed Pakistani and English descent, living in London, and thus knew of what he wrote. This is more of an atmospheric kind of film than a gripping narrative. Kureishi's main subject matter is the tweener types – the children of immigrants who are too "ethnic" to fit fully into the mainstream society but too "white" and acculturated to fit in with the older generation of their own families. It's a phenomenon somewhat akin to a biracial origin.

The gay element of this film is handled with an unusual degree of verisimilitude. These two men obviously care about one another, yet their relationship is fraught with tension and difficulties, just as any marriage or partnership might be. The relationship is neither idealized nor cheapened. Neither writer Kureishi nor director Frears casts this story as "a gay film," though it is sometimes referred to as such. It is a film about the tension inherent in the Thatcher-dominated England of the eighties, but two of the characters happen to be gay lovers. The issue of racism is likewise handled with an honest complexity. Kureishi shows us the reality of bilateral hatred. It's easy to recognize the bigotry of the neo-fascist Anglo lads but Kureishi also shows us the hatred of the successful Pakistani businessmen for the lower class whites. If there's a weakness in the film's script, it's that it cuts too wide a swath, trying to deal simultaneously with several moral issues (racism, classism, sexual orientation, family loyalty, economic Darwinism, etc.), and thus dealing with no one issue especially thoroughly.

My Beautiful Laundrette was a small-budget film, originally shot for television. The budgetary limitations are most evident in the visuals and the sets. It's not that they're noticeably bad, but there's also nothing very special about the film's look. Cinematographer Oliver Stapleton used a lot of close in shots and close framing, probably because that's all the sets would allow.

I've already commented in some other reviews about the amazing versatility of Daniel Day-Lewis as an actor. Here's still another role that is entirely unlike any of the others I've seen him do. Day-Lewis's performance here as Johnny was a career launching one. He went on to roles in such films as A Room with a View (1985), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), My Left Foot (1989), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), In the Name of the Father (1993), The Age of Innocence (1993), The Crucible (1996), and Gangs of New York (2002). Shirley Ann Field was the member of the cast with the most extensive resume when this film was made. She had worked in Peeping Tom (1960), The Entertainer (1960), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), and Alfie (1966).

The actors and actresses playing the Pakistani roles in the film are generally less familiar faces, but Saeed Jaffrey, who was outstanding in the part of Nasser, had previously appeared in The Man Who Would Be King (1975). Roshan Seth, who played Papa, worked also in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Mississippi Masala (1992). I would have expected to see Gordon Warnecke is more films off his lead performance here as Omar, but he has no other top-flight big-screen films to his credit.

Bottom-Line: I'd be shortchanging this film were I to suggest that it will have special interest for gay men and for Pakistanis. More broadly, this is a good film for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider in any respect. Outsiders can identify, for cinematic purposes, with other outsiders, even if the particular point of identity that marks the person as an outsider is different. Everyone in this film is struggling to find their place in the world, and that's something to which most viewers can relate. The MGM DVD provides a pretty good transfer, in a widescreen format at a ratio of 1.78:1, enchanced for widescreen televisions. The only extra is the theatrical trailer. Optional subtitles are offered in English, French, and Spanish. The running time is 98 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age