DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
Illegal immigrants, strange doings at a sleazy hotel, and the longing for a better life are the three key ingredients that make “Dirty Pretty Things” a thought provoking suspenseful thriller. Director Stephen Frears reveals events and facts in layers. Just enough information is given to sustain interest and hopefully to make you ask the right questions about the fates of his key players.
Okwe is a Nigerian on the run holed up in London trying to make ends meet. He drives a cab by day and does odd jobs at a seedy hotel by night. He’s the clean up man, sometimes working the desk, other times lending a thoughtful hand to the hookers who have befriended him. In his off hours he sleeps at the apartment of the Turkish illegal, Senay (Audrey Tatou) who works at the same hotel by day. They are silent partners in a cat and mouse game designed to keep the immigration authorities from finding them. Okwe helps pay the rent and Senay’s landlord doesn’t know he exists. Others do: the owner of the cab company, a friend at the local hospital who supplies him with uppers, and Juan aka Sneaky (Sergei Lopez), the night time concierge who has a sideline business that trades in human misery.
If you’ve read anything about “Dirty Pretty Things” in the major publications you will know what this trade is. You can pretty much figure it out from the get-go when Okwe is asked to help with a stopped up toilet. A human heart comes gurgling to the surface. At first I wondered if “Dirty Pretty Things” would be no more than a horror film with a mad doctor on the loose, but writer Steve Knight and Director Stephen Frears have much more on their mind. They use the trappings of a suspense thriller to explore the twilight world of illegal immigrants who clean the toilets, drive the cabs and perform all the dirty jobs that the average citizen of the civilized world abhors. They are a hardworking invisible race of have-nots who long to carve a place for themselves and their families amidst the anonymity offered by the multi cultural cities of the Western World.
Cliches abound in “Dirty Pretty Things” to be sure, but the performances of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Okwe and Audrey Tatou, who finally sheds the perky image fostered by “Amelie,” are rooted in a reality that’s impossible to ignore. You feel their desperation. Okwe is blackmailed into using skills he has forsaken, lest he be found out, to make enough money to reunite him with his abandoned daughter; Senay submits to a boorish boss in a sweatshop where illegals toil for pennies a day. Both fear deportation. On the surface, “Dirty Pretty Things” has a satisfying ending. But it is not necessarily a happy one. The nagging question raised by the filmmakers still persists. How far would any one person be willing to go, what sacrifices would any one person be willing to endure, and how much of one’s soul would any one person be willing to give up to put food in the mouths of a loved one just one day when abject poverty and starvation are the only other options?
“Dirty Pretty Things” may not be a great movie in the traditional sense, but it’s a thought provoking work that deserves to be seen.
Copyright 2003
More of director Stephen Frears’ unconventional films
“The Hit” (1984) - Sometimes funny movie with Terence Stamp as a stoolie on the lam for ten years who has been found out. With John Hurt (“Elephant Man”) and Tim Roth in his film debut.
“My Beautiful Laundrette” (1985) - Race relations get skewered when an Indian (Saeed Jaffrey) takes over a laundromat with his gay Brit racist friend played in red streaked hair and tie dyed clothes by Daniel Day Lewis. Veteran Indian actor Roshan Seth is the elder voice of reason. The author is Pakistani playwright Hanif Kureishi.
“Sammy and Rosie Get Laid” (1987) - Also with a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi. It’s a tale about an interracial marriage of convenience that is turned on its ear when the man’s father, a political exile, arrives unexpectedly from India. This is essentially a comedy of manners in the midst of the couple’s bohemian lifestyle. There is one chilling scene when the key to his father’s past is revealed he is confronted by a peasant from his home country. Claire Bloom has a small but pivotal part as the father’s one time paramour.
“The Grifters” (1990) - This is one of the all time great movies about the big con and a lifestyle that is anything but glamorous. John Cusack is a small time who gets mixed up with Annette Benning who reminds his hard as nails estranged mother, Anjelica Huston, of herself in her younger days. The performances really spark this bleak tale about the criminal life. The late J.T. Walsh is likewise superb as the master of the big con.