My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) User Reviews

Magic-realist masterpiece.

[the red duchess · 8/10 · 7 December 2000]

A rare instance of magic-realism that actually works in the cinema. The realism is a scrupulously observed portrait of 80s London, its people (entrepreneurs, drunks, racists, wide-boys), locales (dingy flats, delapidated laundrettes, murky car lots) and attitudes (strutting capitalism, dessicated liberalism, farcical extremism).

The magic comes from Frears' style, tweaking and heightening the real; from stylised scenes such as Omar's reuniting with Johnny; from some magical set-pieces, especially the opening of the laundrette, Omar and Johnny making love cut with Nasser and Rachel's waltz; from the clashing of an exotic, Oriental world in a determinedly materialist context.

Kureishi's script is occasionally heavy-handed, but sex is never far from his analyses of power and identity - Omar's crucial tirade against Johnny has a thrilling, Genet-esque frisson.

A Pleasant Surprise

[raptors2 · 8/10 · 4 January 2006]

We saw this movie when it was first released on the big screen. It just happen to start when we needed a movie to so we had no idea what to expect. What a pleasant surprise this film was. Daniel Day Lewis (in one of his earliest roles) stars with Gordon Warnecke in this unconventional love story. Warnecke plays young Omar, who is given the opprtunity to run his uncle's laundrette. He enlists the aid of his ex-lover, Johnny (played by Lewis) to get the business back on it's feet. The scene in the laundrette that includes Omar and Johnny in the foreground and Omar's uncle and his mistress in the background, is one of the most sensual celluloid scenes I ever scene.

If you are looking for something good and out of the ordinary, I would recommend this one.

A business deal melds immigrant and punk

[lib-4 · 8/10 · 20 October 1998]

For its time MBL was a break through movie. London is a very complicated place for colonials and for punks. As the friendship between the boys develops- complications arise. What I liked about this film was its unpretentiousness. You can hear and almost smell the various neighborhoods of London. And Daniel Day Lewis certainly showed his potential for the star he would become.

What A Laundrette!

[Chrysanthepop · 5 November 2008]

'My Beautiful Laundrette' takes a look at the 80's local life within the Asian communities in England and between the British Southeast Asians and the British Caucasians. What I loved about this film is that it presents its themes without going overboard to explain or to resolve anything. When we see a relationship develop between Omar and Johnny, one would expect to see them get attacked for it and then expect a preachy message like gays have rights too but there is nothing like that. There are scenes where the British Asians are being humiliated but this too does not lead to a bloodbath of sorts. It is all downplayed and subtle. It's about the characters, rather than a social message (but that's there too).

'My Beautiful Laundrette' mainly centres around Omar and his relationship with Johnny. Hanif Kureishi is known for telling tales about unconventional relationships and I thought it was great that both characters were shown to be open about their relationships in spite of their background. I mean they weren't screaming from the roof or anything but these two individuals did not care what others would think concerning their relationships. Frears deserves full marks for telling the story in such a raw, real, humorous and coherent way. The humour too is subtle and dry and flows well through the story.

The renovated laundrette too plays a crucial role. It is a place of comfort for Omar and Johnny, kind of like a home they built and decorated. The customers are amused by the beauty of it. A fascinated Nasser dances with his girlfriend while the customers eagerly wait outside. Thus, it becomes a place of comfort for many.

The characters are well etched. Both their strength and fragility is well displayed by the actors. Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke are excellent as Johnny and Omar. Day-Lewis brilliantly brings out Johnny's vulnerable and passionate side while on the exterior he appears as a tough and scary guy. Likewise Warnecke too effectively portrays Omar's determination and passion. A charismatic Saeed Jaffrey is phenomenal as the cheerful helpful uncle who goes through his own transformation. Rita Wolf is wonderful as the daughter who's in search of her own identity. Roshan Seth is good as the whiny father. The rest of the cast do well.

Pretty much all the characters are in search of something except that Omar and Johnny find what they want and Nasser loses what he had. The film does not end by providing a solution for everyone. And that is one of the many brilliance of it as it reflects that everyone has their own life to deal with and questions will arise but life goes on and it is up to us to choose the answer.

Simply great.

making it in Thatcher's England

[mjneu59 · 6/10 · 13 December 2010]

This colorful slice of lowbrow English life has many things working in its favor: character, ingenuity, humor, and (the essential asset for such a modest production) unpredictability. What it doesn't have is a budget, making the film look and sound like a cheap made-for-TV movie, hardly surprising since it was, in fact, produced for British television (a remarkably permissive institution, by American network standards at the time). But a well-written script doesn't (fortunately) need to cost an arm and a leg, and the perceptive screenplay by Hanif Kureishi has a lot on its mind, tossing off social, sexual, and political commentary with subtle insight and brazen wit. It may seem as if his story, about an unemployed (and otherwise unmotivated) young Pakistani and his amiable Anglo-Punk boyfriend, who conspire to beat the system by opening a trendy, upscale Laundromat using money stolen from a local crime syndicate, relies at times too heavily on idiosyncratic behavior and eccentric charm (other films should have such problems). But it all ends happily ever after, doubly so for director Stephan Frears and actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who were both catapulted into the international arena by the film's success.

multicultural gay love story

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 19 January 2016]

Johnny Burfoot (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a squatter in rundown abandoned houses. Hussein "Papa" Ali gets his son Omar a job with his successful uncle Nasser at his car wash. Papa is a drunken disillusioned socialist reporter from Bombay. Omar gets hassled by a group of whites but he is saved by their leader Johnny who is his childhood friend. Nasser lets Omar manage the run down laundrette. Omar hires Johnny to work for him.

Director Stephen Frears brings some of the new Pakistani flavor into his London movie. I don't think Gordon Warnecke is particularly nuanced and is not really leading man material. Frears has the great fortune of casting Daniel Day-Lewis. He's wonderful and so is Roshan Seth. The look is more or less TV production level. This has some very compelling scenes dealing with very serious issues.

Not just a gay love story!

[metalheadmichelle · 9/10 · 5 February 2007]

This film works on a number of different levels. Firstly, there is the love affair between the two main characters, Omar and Johnny, brought to life by brilliant performances from both Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis. The audience remains mostly in the dark about the history shared by the lovers... were they lovers before their chance meeting and subsequent re-discovery or were they just friends as children and lovers as adults? Clearly, though, there has always been a close bond between the two which has remained in tact, even after Johnny had abandoned his friend to join a group of Neo-Nazis. This is where the real complexities of the story lie. The fact that Omar and Johnny embark on a gay love affair seems almost incidental. Rather, it is the power relations between the two that is important. Class, ethnicity, kinship and community are central in shaping the way in which each character perceives their role within the world. Thatcherism and the 'entrepreneurial spirit' has fuelled Omar's ambition to make something of himself in 80s Britain. Conversely, Johnny seems to have resigned himself to his downtrodden status since society has done nothing to help him, so why should he do anything for society? Thus, class is very much an issue here. Ethnicity, too, is key, as the roles of the downtrodden and oppressed seem to have been reversed, with the white, working-class Johnny being the 'victim' of the system rather than the Pakistani, middle-class Omar. Despite all of the differences, however, essentially it is their love for each other that keeps them together. There are occasions when Omar questions whether he and Johnny can really be together in the long-term, such as when he contemplates marriage, whilst Johnny seems to be subordinate, almost passive, towards Omar because of his love for him. Despite all of their differences they both seem to have a profound respect for one another, which will hopefully enable them to continue their relationship, although the ending is left rather open. The main thing when watching this is to view it not only as a gay love story. It also provides a snapshot of 80s Britain and an illustration of the fluidity of identity, and of the different life chances that people had, which is clearly still as relevant today as it was back then.

Good but not excellent

[maraudertheslashnymph · 7/10 · 27 January 2006]

"My Beautiful Launderette" is a mixed bag of touching and powerful moments, somewhat boring lulls in the story, and moral ambiguity. It's mostly about Omar and his life as a Pakistani in Britain; a great deal of it is about families, their bonds, and their conflicts; significant parts of it are about Omar's relationship with Johnny, which means that the film is dealing with a lot of material. For a film with so many aspects, it's too short.

Some will argue that, seeing as it's not the main focus of the film, Omar and Johnny's relationship had a fitting amount of time devoted to it, but their relationship raises so many questions that I found myself wishing it was more central. What exactly was their friendship like when they were young? It's implied that they've had a romantic relationship before the film starts, but why did that end up on hiatus? Aside from being at a certain place in a certain time, what other factors contribute to Johnny's acceptance of Omar, later prejudice, and final love and devotion? The ambiguity is distracting as opposed to lending itself to interpretation.

The dynamics of Omar's family - his businessman uncle, his sick father who was a journalist in Pakistan but now is poor and unrenowned, his ambitious cousin who wants to develop her own life and sees Omar as a means to that end - are well-acted and realistic. In fact, the acting is good all around, which helps in the moments where it seems the plot is taking its time moving from one development to the other, without much substance in between action.

"My Beautiful Launderette" is definitely worth seeing, at least once if not twice, but, having made the decision to put the protagonist in a tumultuous and intriguing romance, the filmmakers should have spent more time on that aspect.

No One Gets Killed

[movietrail · 9/10 · 26 February 2007]

It figures this movie was not made in the USA... If it was, then main gay characters would either have to get killed or at least decently commit, or try to commit, suicide, get castigated or openly persecuted or both for their sexuality, and of course there would have to be a gays-are-people-too sermon somewhere in there. In fact, in this movie, while the gays may not have it easy, neither does anyone else; while in fact the non-gays get much more s--t than our two gay heroes, who seem to playing everybody off of each other anyway. You keep expecting someone to burst in upon their smooching or harassing them on the street or some other such low-down thing, but no (and knowing this makes it so much more easy to watch the second time)! To the Hollywood-weaned watcher, the start is slow and you don't quite know which way things are going, but we are very naturally eased into the two guys' relationship. It's very sweet, Romeo and Jules-like stuff. And like other reviewers mention, it is also so natural and well- made (and carried so many other taboos) that gay seems barely to be the issue. It is not a happy ending for many of the main characters in the movie, but life goes on. Just like life actually does.

My Beautiful Laundrette Surprises

[daoldiges · 7/10 · 9 November 2022]

Having recently rewatched My Beautiful Laundrette I was surprised by how specific it feels to a certain place and time (1980's London). That's not necessarily a bad thing but just kind of interesting. The script and story are a bit unpolished, but the motivations, feelings, and emotions of the characters still manage to shine through. Even though there's a gay connection between two of the characters, defining this film as a gay romance or anything of the sort is a misrepresentation in my opinion. It's a kind of quirky but heartfelt film that will not be for everyone, but if you're curious then definitely check it out.

Not what I'd expected, nor what I'd hoped for.

[fudgepacker-12883 · 3/10 · 28 December 2017]

This film feels kind of sloppily put together and not thoroughly explored in terms of characters, themes, cultures, etc. I found it difficult to follow, with characters flitting about, making odd decisions, and the repercussions being suggested rather than explored. I felt like the homosexual themes, and the cultural struggles weren't well explored, and therefore the movie ended up being rather meaningless.

Highly recommended, entertaining slice of real London life

[LouE15 · 9/10 · 15 November 2006]

Hanif Kureishi's unique world is always fascinating, always challenging: a direct rebuttal to a world in which the "British" are something out of a 1950s time warp (forever white, middle-class, village-dwelling). But he's never been so on-point, so relevant, direct and just plain right as with his script for Stephen Frears' well-made "My Beautiful Laundrette".

Gordon Warnecke plays Omar, a young Pakistani Londoner needing a direction in life in 1980's Britain: time of Thatcher, of aspiration, accumulation. He may be young and good-looking, but he's penniless and without prospects. His failed intellectual father (the great Roshan Seth) delivers him to jaws of the lion, as it were, for the sake of giving him a future. The lion is his uncle (the also great Saeed Jaffrey), rich, successful, an all too literal product of Thatcher's Britain. Omar's world becomes divided between his father, his uncle and his unlikely, erstwhile friend and sometime NF supporter, punk dropout Johnny (an early Daniel Day Lewis).

The world of 'Sarf' London in the 80s is brilliantly depicted – from the feel of the streets right down to the fundamental, almost feudal divide between rich and poor. But it's also a very funny film, sharp and romantic. Neither Omar nor Johnny are meant to succeed in this particular world. But both find a way to defy the bounds set by those around them: what might I suppose be considered the ultimate Thatcherite success – that is, in defiance of the odds, by hook or crook.

Omar and Johnny become lovers - but it's entirely incidental; it can't be allowed to get in the way of business. Certainly it doesn't make them any more outcast than they were already. London has changed a lot. Johnny's kiss stolen from Omar on a dark street corner is one of the all time sexiest moments I can think of in a film, and I can see from other reviewers that I'm not alone. (Hardly necessary to add that you don't have to be gay to enjoy this film – any more than that you have to be a Londoner or British.)

Daniel Day Lewis has since made his way to superstardom; Gordon Warnecke inexplicably languishes in occasional British TV appearances today, as far as I can tell. But both actors are really believable in their roles, both playing complicated, real human characters, driven and held back by multiple forces.

Kureishi tells the searing, unapologetic truth always. With a great eye for character, he knows how to make what people really say, work dramatically. Check out his TV series "The Bhudda of Suburbia", if you can find it. Frears is one of the small handful of great British directors: check out his very funny "The Snapper".

Films like this helped shape my world as a teenager: a Brit classic.

Britain in the time of Thatcher

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 28 November 2011]

"My Beautiful Laundrette," released in 1985, is many things: a study of Britain in the '80s, a class story, the story of Pakistanis trying to assimilate, and a gay love story. Somehow it succeeds on all levels.

Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young Pakistani living in England and caring for his alcoholic, very ill father Hussein (Roshan Seth), once an important journalist whose left leanings haven't gone over very well in Britain. His wife committed suicide by throwing herself onto the train tracks outside of their home. Hussein intends for Omar to go to college, but in the meantime, he wants his brother Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey), who runs many businesses with his right hand man Salim (Derrick Branche), to give Omar a job.

Omar is ambitious and eventually asks his uncle to let him run the filthy, graffiti-ridden laundrette and make it profitable. Omar sees an old school friend, Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis) on the street; Johnny has fallen in with a neo-Nazi group. However, the two reconnect, and Omar convinces Johnny to work with him at the laundrette. They rip off Salim during a drug deal to get money and make the place quite fancy. And Johnny has no compunction about seducing Omar.

One of the things that makes this film fascinating is the treatment of the gay theme, which is not really treated as a theme at all but merely as information about these two young men. Omar doesn't "come out" to his family, no one catches them in the act and is shocked, no one beats them up because they're gay, no one is killed because he's gay, and no one commits suicide because of it. If Omar doesn't tell his family, it's because it's none of their business. He's under pressure to get married, but he doesn't do it. What he will do in the future, obviously, is unknown, but he'll risk losing Johnny so he may never give into the pressure.

The story is more about people living in a country that isn't their own and attempting to "make it," which was the promise of the '80s under Thatcher, and it's about a class system that looks down on poor whites like Johnny. It's also about racial hatred and the violence it causes.

The film is peppered with interesting characters: Nasser's glamorous white mistress (Shirley Anne Field), Nasser's daughter Tania (Rita Wolf), and the volatile Salim.

The film is beautifully photographed, particularly in the romantic scenes...Johnny kissing Omar in the alley is but one example.

The acting --- well, what can be said about acting where Daniel Day-Lewis has a supporting role? It's bound to be good! This film was released on the same day as A Room with a View, and when critics saw Day-Lewis in two such different roles, they were mightily impressed. With his weird hair and low-class accent, Day-Lewis is a likable Johnny, unashamed of his sexuality and trying to get away from a life of violence. The handsome Warnecke is a sympathetic Omar, and Jaffrey and Seth give vivid portraits of two diametrically opposite brothers, one interested in money and flaunting it, the other a beaten-down, sick man of principle. Rita Wolf is a feisty Tania, and Shirley Anne Field is delightful as Rachel.

Excellent film that I'm sure resonates even more if you're British or, better yet, an immigrant in Britain. Excellently directed by Stephen Frears.

Not my cup of tea, wife liked though

[damittaja · 5/10 · 4 May 2013]

I watched this movie because my wife wanted to see it. I didn't have very high expectations for it and I knew what the plot would be because I had read the IMDb summary. I've happened to watch some movies lately which have been way better than the ratings they've had but this one most definitely does not go into that bunch. The plot did go through following some weird script but the problem was that they probably had cut away a lot events that were not central. Scenes would end abruptly or jump to a totally different scene or atmosphere. It made the characters and events a tad too hard to follow. At many points during the movie I was baffled at why the characters did what they did. However, if the point was to depict the chaotic life of people living on the streets and how they supposedly don't behave rationally, this movie succeeded in that goal.

The movie is defined as comedy/drama/romance. There were a few funny things I laughed, I admit, but not nearly enough to warrant a comedy definition. Mostly the movie was drama and romance. The drama was OK, all the characters had problems with life and so on and they tried to cope with the difficult and unfair situations they encountered themselves in. The romance part...well, not my thing here. I guess the movie tried to be provocative and probably was back in 1985 when it was first released but now it was just a bit silly. There was this "dangerous love" element in it and it just didn't work out. The script was no good and the actors quite stiff.

Also, the sounds were horrible. I don't even know how you can fail with 80's music but this movie did just that.

If you are looking for a movie with such a love theme as this one I guess the movie will be OK for you as my wife informed me that the movie was OK but for me it was a pain to watch through.

A perfect slice of Thatcherite Britain.....oh! And a fab gay romance..

[Nic-8 · 28 December 1998]

A classic film in my book, My Beautiful Laundrette is the story of Omar, a young restless Asian man caring for his alcoholic father in Thatcherite London. Escape comes in the form of his uncles many and varied business ventures,...

Anyone who experienced anything of life in '80's Britain will recognise the craving for instant financial success. Similarly I am sure Asian viewers will recognise the struggles inherent in finding an identity in a country which is your home but which can never feel quite like your real home.

Omar dreams of success so works to achieve it...along the way he meets up with old school-friend Johnny, who has betrayed him by falling in with a group of neo-nazi's. Omar soon has Johnny working for him and his uncle. Turning the tables on him as he is made to rely on the very people he has been taught to hate. The chemistry between Omar and Johnny is palpable and their relationship handled totally matter-of-factly. About the only part of the film not trying to score any political points is the gay relationship. There is a "so-what" attitude and no-one comes out at any point. And why should they?

Tension in the film is far more the result of socio-economic and racial inequalities. The whole thing is handled with grace, charm and wit. Anyone remotely familier with British film in particular will note the starry casting of supporting roles, though Danial Day Lewis is - now - the biggest star of the show. Here he shows the real substance behind his fame - more so than in any other film of his seen to date. The cast is universally excellent and the unique shooting, pacing and dialogue, quite quite brilliant.

Some of the shots in this film could be used as a template for brilliance...An unexpected kiss in a dark alley is easily the most erotic single shot I have seen in a film.

Despite a few reviews I have read claiming otherwise, I don't believe you need to be gay or Asian to get something out of this picture. Living in Britain may help, though it's a lot less than essential.......

And hey! Wouldn't you love to throw your knickers into the washing machines of a neon-lit music-filled laudrette from heaven run by two insatiably young and energetic lovers?

Well I would anyway! Pass the detergent this way please!

a wonderful bliss indeed

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 17 March 2014]

Under the iron curtain of Thatcherism in the 1980s, UK veteran Stephen Frears' fourth feature film is an ethnic barrier-breaker in the world queer cinema, much as its fervid confrontations between races and social classes, the central closeted romance between an ex-punk Johnny (Day-Lewis) and a Pakistani Briton Omar (Warnecke) is nurtured with robust intimacy and élan.

Enclosed by a synth-pop heavy pulse, the film starts with Johnny and his gang being expelled from their squatting apartment by some heavies, a similar territory Daniel Day-Lewis would retread in IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993), then cutting to introduce another protagonist, Omar, a college dropout sent to work for his uncle Nasser (Jaffrey) by his bed-ridden father (Seth), a disillusioned idealist and leftist), in Nasser's car-washing lot, Omar meets Nasser's business partner Salim (Branche), a menacing and overbearing bully who conducts some seedy business and Nasser's mistress Rachel (Anne Field), who assumes a quite modernized view of being the other woman, but the entire entanglement will end up with some ludicrous witchcraft.

Omar is ambitious and fast-learning, soon he gets the permission to run Nasser's dilapidated laundromat, and reunites with Johnny, who has been his best friend since childhood, together they embezzle the dough from Salim's underhand drug smuggling and refurbish the laundrette and make a successful business, their romance is also rekindled. But at the same time, Omar is obliged by Nasser to marry his disobedient daughter Tania (Wolf), and Johnny is reckoned as a betrayer by his ne'er-do-well gang members since he is working for Palestinians (also as an unscrewer for kick out Nasser's impecunious tenants), in addition to the conflict between Omar and Salim, there will be blood in the end.

Violence is a requisite in depicting the gulf between well-off immigrants and poverty-stricken native malcontents, xenophobia, racial bias and chauvinism, all can be easily related and incited under the harsh environs, but Frears doesn't attempt to make a point by resorting too much to the excesses, whereas the tender, masculine attraction between two men is rendered with cozy panache and passion, truly, it is an in-the-closet relationship, but it is not about coming-out or AIDs, these routine trappings of the era, their future might be a moot point, however, the virtue of their love strikes as comfortingly authentic and endearing, thanks to the great pair Warnecke and Day-Lewis, one is resolutely sincere and the other is overwhelmingly charismatic, they do make a desirable couple together! Juxtaposed with its peers like MAURICE (1987, 7/10) and ANOTHER COUNTRY (1984, 8/10), MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE's grassroots ambiance and buoyant undertones applicably complement the missing piece of the UK queer cinema menagerie, not revolutionary, but a wonderful bliss indeed.

Fading Beauty - Good, but Dated Jewel in Channel 4's Early Crown

[ninjaalexs · 7/10 · 13 November 2021]

This film famously made stars of the director (Stephen Frears - Philomena, Dirty Pretty Things, The Grifters) , writer (Hanif Kureshi - although I think his later Buddha of Suburbia was better), Hans Zimmer did the score (Inception, The Dark Knight, Interstellar) and actor Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot, In The Name Of The Father, Gangs Of New York).

The film was produced for the Channel 4 TV station in the UK, but it ended up playing the Edinburgh Film Festival and later art cinemas in New York to critical acclaim. It benefited hugely from being shot on 16mm which has meant the film looks good today; films that were shot on video in the 80s largely look bad even when remastered.

The film is a fairly simple story about two young men, one an Indian, the other a white racist who end up forming a romantic,sexual relationship while working in a laundrette in London. Hanif Kureshi creates a lot of social commentary woven into the script. It's worth noting at the time homosexuality was still illegal for men under 21 in the UK and interracial relationships weren't as accepted as they are now. The film is a bit of a time capsule and I think some viewers will wonder what the fuss is about (a bit like watching Guess Who's Coming To Dinner today). It's brightly photographed and quite a bitter-sweet film, but it's not the masterpiece it is made out to be in my opinion.

Beautiful, smart and romantic, a classic with so much to say

[cribscythe · 10/10 · 7 August 2013]

"My Beautiful Laundrette" is most commonly advertised as a drama and comedy, though the richly symbolic romantic aspect between the main two boys is what quietly takes the show. I have never seen a relationship in film that comes close to the classic, inspiring, well-known pair of Johnny and Omar.

Johnny, who seemingly takes the lead in their sexual and romantic relationship, is a white, rough-and-tumble street punk caught up in a small gang and going nowhere. Omar is a bright-eyed, handsome Pakistani boy who takes care of his father, and when a taste of work comes his way, wants nothing more than "big money" and to prove the country he lives in will not beat him. Johnny's lust and love for Omar is apparent from the start, and in a handsomely unique and unpredictable fashion, their business relationship is reversed on terms of who leads who, providing an interesting dynamic between them.

Omar's warm, eager demeanor and Johnny's quiet, sideways glances tell the audience about the previous foundation of their past relationship within the first twenty seconds of their meeting. I couldn't imagine that sort of raw, unspoken integrity ever being so successfully accomplished without these two actors and the fantastic chemistry between their characters.

Johnny's absolute loyalty to Omar is heartwarming, promising, and honest. He wants nothing more than to prove his love and partnership with everything he has, and he offers it all - his work, his love, and sex. Omar reciprocates his love with forgiveness and, despite being the boss in their business relationship, his consistent admiration toward Johnny is apparent, deep and romantic. He changes into a more confident and proud man with Johnny by his side.

Daniel Day-Lewis(Johnny) and Gordon Warnecke(Omar)'s performances were, I will say once more, just spectacular. I have never seen any bit of film quite as passionate, honest nor as erotic as the scene where Johnny and Omar make love. I've been inspired by seeing the tenderness and moving passion of both their love and general partnership - their compatibility is demonstrated by their determination to stay together, despite what happens in the midst of the insanity the film provides.

I will say that it is also very real, however, and therefore it does have its rough moments and ups and downs like any relationship between two people should. I won't say too much aside from that I thought the ending was sweet and it took me by surprise, not bothering with a few loose ties if only to inspire lovely ambiguity.

There is much more to "My Beautiful Laundrette" than Johnny and Omar's romantic relationship, but the symbolism it serves - as representing the hopeful future, their business, how the world sees them - relates to all aspects of the film. Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke's performances alone are enough of a reason to give it a watch.

If you'd like to see a smart, witty, beautiful love story rich in symbolism and more substance than a single review could do justice for, I'd recommend you do yourself a favor by watching "My Beautiful Laundrette."

How to deal with romance and a family of corruption.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 6 April 2022]

Memorable performances by Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day Lewis shine in a romantic drama with political and racial overtones as violence during the Thatcher era affects a gay couple where the Pakistani Warnecke and Caucasian Lewis deal with family obstacles. Street tough Lewis finds himself as both the life partner and business partner of Warnecke, and that's not good enough for Warnecke's powerful uncle, Saeed Jaffrey, who wants to set his nephew up in business and find him a good wife. Other family members also interfere, with prejudices in abundance and the ugliness of racism rearing its head. Jeffrey is separated from his wife and involved with the white Shirley Anne Field, and interestingly enough, he never shows the slightest bit of homophobia outside of wanting to stick with tradition. These hypocricies make for interesting character development, with Warnecke's ailing father Roshan Seth definitely under his brother's thumb.

Then there's Rita Wolf as Jaffrey's daughter, cousin to Warnecke whom Jaffrey wants him to marry, in an interesting twist of incest. Wolf discovers the truth about her cousin and Lewis and makes her own threats, but how can she stand between true love?. This reminded me of British films of the late 1950's and early 60's in is realism and grittiness, often disturbing yet very well written with great performances. This certainly is quite different than the other two British gay seems films of the 1980s that got a lot of attention, the period pieces "Another Country" and "Maurice". The two actors do not fake it in their love scenes. Lewis as usual plays a character you won't recognize in any of his other roles. It certainly was a daring challenge, perhaps not perfect and missing some political detail that would have explained the problems in British society a bit more. Field, a veteran British actress who starred in several of those 60's realistic dramas, is absolutely lovely.

Deserves a much higher IMDb rating

[miss_lady_ice-853-608700 · 9/10 · 27 February 2013]

Maybe it's the fact that the film's very British and very eighties but how can this possibly score 6.9 whereas tripe like Good Will Hunting gets 8? Sometimes I despair at the reviewers on here.

Anyway, back to the film. Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young Asian guy who goes to work for his Thatcherite uncle (Saeed Jaffrey). His ambition is to renovate his uncle's run-down laundrette. He gets in his white mate Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) to give him a hand and the two guys fall in love.

My Beautiful Laundrette completely encapsulates the zeitgeist of 1980's Britain, tackling everything from racial tension, immigration, generation differences, class differences, Thatcherism and homosexuality. I say 'tackle'- it's presented but the viewer is allowed to make their own minds up. This is primarily a coming-of-age film and on that level it can appeal to everyone.

As for the arguments that you can only like this film if you fit into one of the criteria portrayed here or the period it was set in, they're completely ridiculous. So, we can only like Schindler's List if we're a Nazi or a Jew and were alive in the forties? Come on people. The only criteria I fit in with this film is that I live in Britain- not even London, where the film's set.

What a lot of people dislike about the film is that it portrays a lot of the tensions happening in Britain but it does so on a very human level. No character is just a victim of the state. It's a light romantic comedy that lets us see the violence and racism but doesn't linger, making it more powerful when things do happen.

As for the relationship between Omar and Johnny, it's portrayed very tenderly (and very sexily, though tasteful). What is rare for a 'gay film'- a label given to any film that has gay characters in- is that the characters aren't tortured over their sexuality or punished. It's just portrayed as a normal loving relationship and the two actors- both straight- are very convincing.

Now Daniel Day Lewis has bagged his third Oscar, breaking the record for Best Actor, how does he fare in a very early film in his career? I really enjoyed his performance- you can see there's something about him, even at this age. His facial structure is outstanding- he looks very striking. And there's none of the mannerisms you might expect from an actor destined to do well. He comes across as a fresh talent- which he was.

A film of its time

[jromanbaker · 6/10 · 23 December 2020]

Some films you should never re-visit and this is one of them. The 1980's was a troubled time, overshadowed by AIDS and many social problems. I have read reviews here mentioning magic realism ( a trend of troubled times as a form of intellectual escapism ) and this film attempted to make us escape while dealing with both racism and homosexuality. A few worthy heterosexuals played around with homosexuality and through my critical eyes failed. Omar and Johnny are opening a laundrette and in the climate of the times this seemed a daring thing to do, marrying ( no pun intended ) two gay lovers that epitomised for the times both racism and homophobia. Straights were grateful, and a lot of gay people were grateful as well that such a subject could be moving and brave. Sadly I could not quite believe in it then and especially from an independent Gay/Queer film perspective in recent decades I find it tiresome. Daniel Day-Lewis attempted authenticity but seemed unfit for the character he was supposed to portray. Both ' Another Country ' and ' Beautiful Thing ' are also Gay themed films which I did not quite believe in and it took the 21st C. to shake up things and in the main from France. ' God's Own Country ' is the one film from the UK that I thought 100% succeeded. It is good to re-visit the past sometimes and to wonder why we were as Gay people so ready to accept the crumbs from heterosexual tables. But then maybe they got us through to less homophobic times.

Way, way over-hyped

[TheLurkingFox · 3/10 · 16 June 2012]

My Beautiful Laundrette is one of the most over-hyped movies I've ever seen.

But then again there's an explanation: As one of the first ever real gay-themed movies, it was praised just for the very fact it talked about the Pakistani community and had a gay aspect. Two things that just weren't done before.

But does it make it a good movie? No. It's long, boring, difficult to understand because it jumps from scene to scene without ever really settling on anything, and there are two many characters introduced at the same time (most with mind-numbingly boring story lines), too many things that are implied but never really said out loud. It could be "subtle" but it just ends up being "confusing".

In the end, it's a movie that wants to be about being gay, but also about being Pakistani in London, but also about being a white thug / homeless young guy in 80s London, but also about being a young closeted guy, and also about a guy turning an old business into a new shiny one, while also being about drug dealers, and about standing up to your community for love (a la Romeo and Juliette). In short, the film never knows what it wants to be about, and all is lost.

I think most people who love this movie are the people who saw it when it had just come out and THEY had just come out as well (or were about to, or something) - I'm sure there's a very emotional connection to this movie for a lot of people, that is completely unrelated to the actual film's worth.

A brilliantly observed and wickedly funny study of its central themes and characters

[dr_clarke_2 · 9/10 · 25 February 2021]

Stephen Frears' 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette - originally made for Channel 4 television but given a cinema release following favourable reviews at the Edinburgh Film Festival - is based on a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi and focuses on tensions between English and Pakistani communities in Thatcher-era London. At the same time, it famously revolves around a gay relationship between Gordon Warnecke's Omar and Daniel Day-Lewis' Johnny, making it groundbreaking in more ways than one. Kureishi's screenplay - not unusually for him - boasts very witty dialogue and casts an acerbic eye over the problems of society at the time, managing to do so with warmth rather than cynicism. At one point, Omar's Uncle Nasser gleefully refers to "this damn country that we hate and love" and tells Omar how to "squeeze the tits of the system". He gets all the best lines, including "I'm a professional businessman, not a professional Pakistani. And there is no question of race in the new enterprise." Kureishi writes believable characters supremely well; everybody here has complex motivations and is capable of good and bad actions, whilst inter-personal relationships are complicated and true. The film is firmly rooted in Thatcher's Britain - or at least popular perceptions of what that was - with racial tensions and marginalisation of minority groups running side by side with Nasser's (and Omar's) embracing of capitalism and the opportunities he sees within it. But it also isn't entirely predictable. Early in the film, a potentially violent encounter between Omar and his family with racist street punks is completely derailed when Omar largely ignores them and goes to talk to their leader Johnny, an old school friend. Kureishi examines the racist attitudes on display and then subverts them; not only does Johnny turn his back on his past when offered happiness with Omar, but Moose - a member of his old gang - is at several points seen helping out at the laundrette, until Salim deliberately drives over his foot. What is really striking now - given the film's reputation as a pivotal example of LGBTQ cinema - is that the relationship between Omar and Johnny goes almost entirely unremarked on by anyone else. This is largely because they are successful in keeping it a secret from Omar's family (his father Hussein and Nassar plot to pair him up with Tania, who quietly and bitterly leaves after - it is implied - learning the truth from Johnny) and from Johnny's former gang, but Kureishi's decision not to "out" them during the course of the story again illustrates that he is seldom a writer who takes predictable routes. Considering that it was made on a television budget in the nineteen eighties, My Beautiful Laundrette has aged well; shot on location around London suburbs Wandsworth, Vauxhall and Battersea, it is meticulously directed by Frears. Cinematographer Oliver Stapleton shows off the locations to good effect, including the titular laundrette. The scene of Nasser dancing with Rachel in the laundrette is beautifully shot and Frears intercuts it with a scene of Johnny and Omar making love which is one of many small touches that give the film an occasionally surreal air, along with Tania's sudden disappearance from the station platform at the end. Warnecke and Day-Lewis both give superb, naturalistic performances, and it proved to be something of a breakthrough performance for the latter who is remarkable as the working class thug trying to better himself and finding love. The film also benefits a superb supporting cast including Roshan Seth as Omar's alcoholic Papa, Saeed Jaffrey as his uncle Nasser and Derrick Branche as his cousin Salim. If there is one thing that dates the film more than its actual setting and plot, it is the unfortunate use of synthesisers on the soundtrack by Stanley Myers (and Hans Zimmer, credited as Ludus Tonalis), although on the other hand the whimsical bubbling sound used for scenes in the laundrette is simple but effective. But whilst some of the film's details may feel like historical artefacts (although depressingly not quite as much as they should), My Beautiful Laundrette remains a brilliantly observed and wickedly funny study of its central themes and characters.

Has not aged well

[Brit_in_Malaysia · 7/10 · 26 January 2020]

During a wave of the sudden "discovery " of Britasian writers in the mid-1980s, My Beautiful Laundrette was touted by Channel 4 as a milestone of British cinema.

It was cool to suggest this film epitomised Thatcher's Britain. While it unveiled some insights of first and second generation Britasians, much of this film seems like a taxi ride: a series of vignettes, many placed purely for shock value. It was a decade when script editors picked up writers who failed to grasp the importance of structure and craft and this film is now more of a showcase for that era of storytelling.

Nice in spots. A bumpy ride with disconnected threads. Unfortunately, Thatcher's Britain was far more organised than this movie's subtext suggests

High marks for effort. Especially from the lead actors. They carried the move from one bemused stop to another.

Had some moments, but mostly confusing

[MayuMG · 5/10 · 9 March 2022]

-I liked that it depicted a part of UK you don't hear much about.

-Dialogue was well written

-Story was very hard to follow. It jumped all over the place and you had a small idea of what was happening but not really.

-The climax was at the end? It was basically very nonsensical or just too metaphorical to understand properly. Maybe I'll rewatch it, but it's extremely hard to follow. I don't even remember what really happened.