My Beautiful Laundrette [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Stephen Frears, Tim Bevan, Sarah Radclyffe Stephen Frears

Overview

"After the death of his wife and his subsequent descent into alcoholic near-agoraphobia, a crotchety Pakistani intellectual convinces his shady entrepreneur brother to provide work for his son in this multi-layered portrait of the immigrant experience in Great Britain. Young Londoner Omar (Gordon Warnecke) isn't sure what he wants out of life, but his uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey) provides a corrupt, capitalist role model as Omar graduates from washing cars for the old crook to running his run-down laundromat. After a chance meeting with Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), an old school chum whose flirtation with fascism deeply wounded Omar's principled Papa (Roshan Seth), Omar hires the young thug to work for him. Soon, the pair begin a romantic relationship that remains as under wraps as the illicit drug-running and enforcement work they perform for Nasser's associate, Salim (Derrick Branche). On the domestic front, Omar must balance his knowledge of Nasser's long-running affair with posh Brit Rachel (Shirley Ann Field) with his own loyalty and attraction to Nasser's westernized daughter, Tania (Rita Wolf). After successfully transforming his laundrette into a vision of resplendent pastel suds and providing a bright spot in his otherwise squalid London neighborhood, Omar seems to have a bright future in Nasser's organization. The spectre of Johnny's past, however, combines with Omar's conflicted immigrant loyalties to threaten the sense of identity the young man has managed to stake out for himself. British-born, half-Pakistani playwright and novelist Hanif Kureishi won an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette, which was originally filmed for BBC television. Kureishi collaborated again with director Stephen Frears on Sammy and Rosie Get Laid."

Product Details

Release Date:	07/21/2015
UPC:	0715515151719
Original Release:	1985
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	1:38:00
Sales rank:	762

Special Features

New conversation between director Stephen Frears and producer Colin MacCabe; New interviews with writer Hanif Kureeishi, producers Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe, and Stapleton; Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Gordon Warnecke	Omar Ali
Daniel Day-Lewis	Johnny Burfoot
Roshan Seth	Hussein "Papa" Ali
Saeed Jaffrey	Nasser Ali
Derrick Branche	Salim N. Ali
Rita Wolf	Tania N. Ali
Souad Faress	Cherry N. Ali,Cherry, Salim's Wife
Shirley Anne Field	Rachel
Garry Cooper	Squatter
Charubala Chokshi	Bilquis
Nisha Kapur	Nasir's Younger Daughter,Nasser's Younger Daughter
Walter Donohue	Dick O'Donnell,Dick O'Donnell
Neil Cunningham	Englishman,Englishman
Persis Marvala	Nasser's Elder Daughter
Gurdial Sira	Zaki,Zaki,Gurdial/Zaki
Stephen Marcus	Moose,Moose
Ram John Holder	Poet,Poet
Dawn Archibald	Gang Member #1,Gang Member
Gerard Horan	Telephone Man,Telephone Man
Bhasker Patel	Tariq,Tariq
Badi Uzzaman	Dealer,Dealer,Dealer
Jonathan Moore	Gang Member
Ayub Khan Din	Student
Dulice Liecier	Girl in Disco
Chris Pitt	Kid #1
Kerryann White	Kid #2
Colin Campbell	`Madame Butterfly' Man
Sheila Chitnis	Zaki's Wife,Zaki's Wife
Winston Graham	Jamaican #1
Dudley Thomas	Jamaican #2
Walter Donahue	dick O'donnell
Dulice Leicier	Girl in Disco
Richard Graham	Genghis
Persis Khambatta	Actor
Hans Zimmer	Composer,Composer
Stanley Myers	Composer
Ludus Tonalis	Composer

Technical Credits

Hanif Kureishi

Stephen Frears	Director
Tim Bevan	Director,Producer
Sarah Radclyffe	Producer,Director,Producer
Hanif Kureishi	Screenwriter
Budge Tremlett	Sound Effects
Matthew Whiteman	Sound Effects
Tip Tipping	Stunts

Editorial Reviews

This terse, elliptical, complicated film reveals new layers with each viewing despite the somewhat simplistic hopefulness of its message that love and loyalty can conquer differences in class, politics, and ethnic background. Writer Hanif Kureishi and director Stephen Frears pack My Beautiful Laundrette with so many characters, ideas, and well-observed moments that stars Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis barely get the chance to demonstrate their characters' dance of desire and economic power. It's a toss-up whether the compression of Johnny and Omar's romance and struggle with the past into a few key scenes is the mark of brilliantly cinematic storytelling or simply of Kureishi's inexperience; either way, My Beautiful Laundrette is hardly a romantic comedy despite the sweetness of its love story and the wry humor of its tangled social and economic circles. Day-Lewis and Warnecke are appealing in their fresh-faced naïveté and bravado, but it's Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, and the tart, smart Rita Wolf whose perceptive, pitch-perfect characters provide the theories and examples by which Omar can gauge his integration into Anglo-Pakistani society. All this talk of identity politics makes My Beautiful Laundrette sound strident and stuffy, but it isn't. Full of indelible characters and well-defined conflicts, Frears and Kureishi's film works on the most basic level as a coming-of-age story -- one whose rich details provide astute audiences with plenty to ponder.