Stephen Frears has directed quite a few terrific movies (High Fidelity, one of my ATFs, The Grifters, The Van, and more) but one of his abiding interests has been the immigrant culture in London and he pursues that interest again in Dirty Pretty Things, a story about three people who come to London from very different homelands but face much the same pressures.
Audrey Tautou, who made a huge impact in Amelie, features here as a Turkish immigrant waiting for her status to be determined by the authorities; in the meantime, she’s not permitted to work or take in a tenant to share the cost of an apartment but to have the money for food and rent she of course must do both. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a Nigerian in the country illegally, a trained surgeon running away from political trouble at home, unable to sleep and working two jobs, subletting the couch from Tautou’s Senay. They both work for Senor Juan, the third immigrant, at a hotel where unpleasant things take place.
Frears and writer Steve Knight create a mileau where essentially no ethnically English people exist even though the whole film takes place in London and every person struggles to find and keep their place. I’ve little doubt that they’ve reflected a true picture of life in these neighborhoods but perhaps the dramatic exaggeration is the overwhelming pace of the drudgery and pressure. The acting, the often claustrophobic settings, the bland and dark imagery all combine to give Dirty Pretty Things a strikingly creeping effect, quite suited to the material.
Recommended
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