My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

Director:

Stephen Frears

Writer:

Hanif Kureishi (written by)

Release Date:

April 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

An ambitious Asian Briton and his white lover strive for success and hope, when they open up a glamorous laundromat.

Plot Keywords:

Thatcher | Mistress | London England | Politics | Laundromat

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 5 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Saeed Jaffrey	...	Nasser Hussein
Roshan Seth	...	Ali Hussein
Daniel Day-Lewis	...	Johnny (as Daniel Day Lewis)
Gordon Warnecke	...	Omar Hussein
Derrick Branche	...	Salim N. Hussein
Rita Wolf	...	Tania N. Hussein
Souad Faress	...	Cherry N. Hussein
Richard Graham	...	Genghis
Shirley Anne Field	...	Rachel
Winston Graham	...	Jamaican One
Charu Bala Chokshi	...	Bilquis (as Charu Bala Choksi)
Dudley Thomas	...	Jamaican Two
Garry Cooper	...	Squatter
Neil Cunningham	...	Englishman
Persis Maravala	...	Nasser's Elder Daughter

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | Urdu

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:18 | Iceland:16 | Australia:M | Portugal:M/16 | Finland:K-16 | France:U | South Korea:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

245 Queenstown Road, Battersea, London, England, UK

Company:

Channel Four Films

Trivia:

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985) both opened in New York on the same day, March 7, 1986. Both movies featured Daniel Day-Lewis in prominent and very different roles: in A Room with a View, he played a repressed, snobbish Edwardian upperclassman, while in Laundrette, he played a lower-class gay ex-skinhead in love with an ambitious Pakistani businessman in Thatcher's London. When American critics saw Day-Lewis, who was then virtually unknown in the US, in two such different roles on the same day, many (including Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times) raved about the talent it must have taken him to play such vastly different characters.

Quotes:

Johnny: Ain't nothing I can say to make it up to you. There's only things I can do to show you... That I am with you.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Ha-Buah (2006)

No One Gets Killed

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.