My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

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

Director:

Stephen Frears

Writer:

Hanif Kureishi

Stars:

Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, Daniel Day-Lewis

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 7 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Saeed Jaffrey	...	Nasser Ali
Roshan Seth	...	Hussein Ali
Daniel Day-Lewis	...	Johnny (as Daniel Day Lewis)
Gordon Warnecke	...	Omar Ali
Derrick Branche	...	Salim N. Ali
Rita Wolf	...	Tania N. Ali
Souad Faress	...	Cherry N. Ali
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

Storyline

Much of the Pakistani Hussein family has settled in London, striving for the riches promised by Thatcherism. Nasser and his right hand man, Salim, have a number of small businesses and they do whatever they need to make money, even if the activities are illegal. As such, Nasser and his immediate family live more than a comfortable lifestyle, and he flaunts his riches whenever he can. Meanwhile, his brother, alcoholic Ali, once a famous journalist in Pakistan, lives in a seedy flat with his son, Omar. Ali's life in London is not as lucrative in part because of his left leaning politics, which does not mesh with the ideals of Thatcherism. To help his brother, Nasser gives Omar a job doing menial labor. But Omar, with bigger plans, talks Nasser into letting him manage Nasser's run down laundrette. Omar seizes what he sees as an opportunity to make the laundrette a success, and employs an old friend, Johnny - who has been most recently running around with a gang of white punks - to help ...

---

Plot Keywords:

england | laundromat | thatcher | mistress | pakistani | 

---

Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

---

Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English Urdu

Release Date:

April 1986 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Minha Bela Lavandaria

Filming Locations:

245 Queenstown Road, Battersea, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

£650,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Channel Four Films, SAF Productions, Working Title Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

My Beautiful Laundrette and A Room with a View 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

[first lines]
Johnny: We're moving house.

---

Connections

Featured in A Personal History of British Cinema by Stephen Frears (1997)

User Reviews

He'll go to college

"He'll (Omar) go to college and study. He must. We all must. So we can see clearly who is doing what to whom." This is the view of Poppa, Omar's father. This bedridden man is an ex-journalist from Pakistan who has lived to see his wife throw herself in front of the trains that rattle incessantly outside his flat and his own students march past with National Front. To top it off, his younger brother, Nasser, who carried his typewriter when they were boys back in Pakistan, has become the "Sardou of South London," a big enough cheese to give his own son a failed laundrette to run. "Government grant." But, Uncle Nasser has a chink in his armor, too: will his relationship with his mistress, Rachel, last as long as that with his wife? Both brothers look to a union between Omar and Tania, yep, Nasser's daughter, as the key to the future of their band of Pakistani immigrants in a land that doesn't want them. Will these energetic offspring comply with their plans? Omar seems closer to the randy and remorseful Johnny than anyone. Smart cookie that she is, Tania packs her belongings in her Princess suitcase and...Everyone has a decision to make in this fascinating sociological study of Thatcherite England. Wonder what everyone is doing now?