Product Description

With its "extraordinary cast" (Los Angeles Times)including OscarÂ(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 Foot

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19149 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2003-06-03
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
My Beautiful Laundrette, Stephen Frears's low-budget realization of Hanif Kureishi's subversively critical play, captures the contradictions of mid-'80s Thatcherism in a way that's as fresh today as when it was new. Wheeler-dealer Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey) sums it up when he says, "In this damn country, which we hate and love, you can get anything you want." He sets up his nephew Omar (Gordon Warnecke) with a rundown laundrette and the instruction to make it a success, which Omar temporarily does, with the help of his childhood friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). When the film was first released, it was the gay content that dominated the conversation, whereas now it seems a sensitive and multifaceted summation of its decade, exploring social, ethnic, and sexual issues and contradictions. Bringing together two such different characters as Omar--Asian, ambitious, for whom success is defined by wealth--and former childhood friend Johnny--white trash, ex-National Front--was inspired. Watching their friendship develop into love, and the ensuing bitterness and misunderstanding that they suffer from friends and family, is very poignant. All the lead roles are well taken, the contradictory character of Nasser in particular. By turns, funny, touching and anger-inducing, My Beautiful Laundrette wears its age lightly and its era proudly. --Harriet Smith

Customer Reviews

heartwarming
The film covers a short period of time in the life of Omar, a young Pakistani living in London in the 80's. His father is a brilliant, well educated socialist who was famous back home but is a nobody there, so he has taken to his bed with a bottle of vodka. His hope is in Omar, and he expects him to go to college to understand the evils of society. Meanwhile, though they need cash and he calls on his successful brother, Nassar to give Omar a summer job in one of his many businesses.

We watch Omar as he gains favor with Nassar and gets to manage one of his run down laundrettes in a poor area of the city. He wants to follow in his uncle's footsteps and make a lot of money. The plot thickens as he runs into an old childhood friend, Johnny, a lower class native Brit who has turned into a petty criminal and hangs out with a group of racist skinhead types. We follow Omar as he deals with the various personalities in the extended family, including a female cousin who has her eye on him.

Omar persuades Johnny to help him turn the laundrette into something spectacular and the project gives the film its center. We see squalor turned into beauty as the two boys realize their dream and meanwhile we see them fall in love with each other. It's not a simple success story, though, and they have to contend with enemies in both groups--the Pakistani family and the skinheads.

There is so much richness in this small, unpretentious, made for TV film...themes of class distinction, political views, sexuality, roles of women as well as race. The film just tells the story without preaching at us. I found myself rooting for each of them, at one time or another, with the exception of the totally vile Salim. The acting is terrific and Daniel Day Lewis will grab your heart. And even though there is plenty to worry us as the plot unfolds, I found myself feeling good at the end. A very human film.

Ramble about life
I suppose people either love this film or hate it....

The basic plot was a guy trying to do something in his life in a somewhat confusing world, were everything was not to his advantage. Omar, a son of Pakistani immigrant, who up until the start of the movie, didn't have any direction in life. We don't know about his history, but it'll unfold later in the movie. We learned he is gay, and was a troublemaker when he was younger.

Anyways..., I suppose some people don't like how this movie rambles. I for one, hate it when I sense the author of a book (or in this case, filmmaker) can't seem to make up his/her mind. I don't think in this movie the direction is lost (it actually works for some odd reason). The movie is sort of a snapshot of life going through a phase. This is realism. I suppose it won't satisfy people who like a grand plot that's meticulously devised.

Also keep in mind the movie was from the 80's when most movies' plots were thin like paper. There are some dialogues that don't connect too well. In general though, it's pretty good if you put the era into perspective.

Memorable characters.... This is a very difficult thing to do in a movie or a book. I like how real the characters seem to be. Not fake, not exaggerated malevolent or divinely benign. They have their own self interests. There is few political agenda in characters' dialogue (e.g., let's beautify gay people, or let's do an anti-discrimination theme). No, they are just real people. They don't speak words directly to the audience and feed us ideas. They earn out affection by being themselves, not "I am gay and Pakistani, so you owe me something." If you want melodrama, look elsewhere. (And people say I am melodramatic... ;-))

I love the ending; very cute and affectionate. Leave an imprint on me without shock value or sensual eroticism. You'd think after Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis) got beaten up, you'd hear some grunt about life and injustice in general. No..., we are rewarded with a scene where Omar tried to clean Johnny's wound and they ended up not "I'm sorry, but let's have sex" but two guys, very innocently splash water at each other. That's VERY original (though I sensed Day-Lewis was about to take his pants off...). I challenge you to write a scene like that.

Life moves on, you know. I am happy the movie doesn't give a self-pity, wound-licking ending. (I apologize for being so unprofessional in this review. LOL!)

good flick
The acting is great and Daniel Day was great; Omar is awesome. The movie is very sensual. The story is well told and interesting.