My Beautiful Laundrette
Written by Hanif Kureishi
And so, after a too-long hiatus for reasons I assume no
one cares about, I have returned to the fold of talking about movies with
screenwriting accolades! In fairness, it may have taken me a while to get to
this write-up anyway, as there’s a lot to “unfold” in My Beautiful Laundrette (Ha HA! I’m the best). I’m not too up on
Stephen Frears’ filmography, honestly, and about the only thing that really
excited me about it was the chance to see a young Daniel Day-Lewis. Spoiler
alert: he’s pretty great.
This was a strange movie. I can’t for the life of me
figure out where screenwriter Hanif Kureishi came up with the idea, unless it
was pulled from some real life experience. A little research tells me that Laundrette largely concerns Thatcher-era
British politics, but as an American who was born only a few months after this
movie was released, I can’t say I have a good frame of reference. It’s
difficult to really put into context is what I’m saying, so I’ll have to
approach it from another angle. I can’t relate to the real-world events
informing the story in any meaningful way, so I have to look at the characters
and the plot individually to see if it all works.
So we’ve got Omar, a young middle eastern fellow, who
gets a job working for his uncle’s car dealership. He does a good job and gets
promoted to running his uncle’s laundromat. Only it appears his uncle is into
some pretty unsavory affairs, and Omar is kind of forcibly thrust into his
world. He never seems to mind all that much, but he has almost no agency. The
job is given to him, as is the promotion, and the invitation to his uncle’s
party. It’s almost as though Omar is being forced into some kind of seedy
underworld as his family constantly reassures him that this is the only way to
be successful.
The first thing Omar goes out of his way to take for
himself are the management position at the laundromat and, soon after that,
Johnny. They’re the only two things in his control, or at least under his
influence. Johnny’s entrance into the story is when My Beautiful Laundrette really takes off, and not just because
Daniel Day-Lewis is never less than mesmerizing. That’s part of it, of course,
but there’s more. Johnny’s introduction brings the movie to life and brings
conflicts in. Omar’s family doesn’t like that he hired an employee, Johnny’s
friends don’t like him hanging around these “Pakis,” etc. That big brawl at the
end can all be traced back to Johnny coming back into Omar’s life.
But let’s talk about the love affair. It’s interesting, I
kept thinking Laundrette was going to
turn into kind of a proto-Brokeback
Mountain, and be about these star-crossed lovers who are forced apart by circumstances and the social
climate of the time. It’s not, though. There’s some palpable tension when Uncle
almost walks in on them in the office, but it’s quickly defused. Omar is
supposed to marry his cousin, but Johnny doesn’t take it personally. Then Omar’s
cousin (Tania, who is delightful) takes a liking to Johnny, but that doesn’t rattle
Omar in the slightest. Instead, it seems like Johnny and Omar’s love for each
other serves to illustrate how stupid all that racial tension is. The Pakis don’t
trust the whites, and vice versa, and it all culminates in violence in the
final act. Johnny and Omar are there to show us how meaningless it all really
is. Race doesn’t even factor into their relationship aside from a brief
conversation about Johnny’s former days as a radical.
That’s how I read it. Another divergent road from Brokeback is that there seems to be a
happy ending. Everything ends with Omar and Johnny playfully splashing each
other, even after their (beautiful) laundromat gets trashed, as if to say, “Hey,
this is the world we live in. Let’s start over and try again.” What else can
you do?
Lots of little touches I liked. I laughed out loud at the
shot of Uncle spying Tania on the train platform, and Omar’s father was always
good for a laugh. “Not a bad little dump you’ve got here,” was a great line.
So as for ongoing rankings…
1)
My
Beautiful Laundrette
2)
“Crocodile”
Dundee
Next up is an Oliver Stone double feature, with Platoon followed by Salvador. Let’s do it to it.
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