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Movie: Dirty Pretty Things
Directed by Stephen Frears; Written by Steve Knight
Starring Amy Tatou, Chiwetel Ejiofor (Miramax)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
Dirty Pretty Things may be the most unusual story you will see this year, but it has a lot to say.
The film is set in modern day London but it is a dark and seamy side of the city that you will never see in a travel brochure. This part of London is populated by immigrants from Africa, the MidEast, Europe and other places, but the problem is that immigrants aren't allowed to work. Desperate, they have to find jobs on the black market, hoping they will be able to scrape up enough money to get themselves out of their predicament.
The two immigrants in this story are Senay and Okwe. Audrey Tatou, best remembered for the French film Amalie, melts endearingly and completely into shy Senay, a Turkish woman who dreams of living with relatives in New York. Although she is not allowed a roommate, staying with her is a Nigerian man, Okwe. He's played with an understated but heroic grace by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is nothing short of magnificent. We soon learn that Okwe is an honorable, highly educated man who was a doctor in Nigeria, but he's on the run from the authorities there. Living under an assumed name, he now works the front desk all night in the same seedy London hotel where Senay works as a maid. The two live together in secret, and they clearly care for each other, yet they cannot risk becoming true lovers.
Dirty Pretty Things might have been a powerful enough just as a love story between these two, but there is a far more sinister component to the plot. Okwe stumbles onto the fact that there is a black marketeer operating at the hotel, servicing London hospitals with human body parts. People are buying new lives with a very real pound of flesh. When the marketer finds out Okwe's real identity, he and Senay are both drawn into the foul trade. Their love, their very lives, are forfeit, but Okwe still strives to find a way out.
The story is fictitious but you realize that things like this must happen in places besides London too. Kudos to Stephen Frears for having the guts to make such a wonderfully powerful, uncompromising film.
The Skinny:
Am I glad I saw the film? Yes, it's extremely compelling.
Would I go to see it again? I'm glad I saw it but I just don't care to visit that part of the London underground often.
© 2003 - Rusty Pipes