to be honest, i started watching this movie by chance. i found it very boring, dowdy, and fittingly dull. i didn't realize the men were lovers at first. That's not really the point, but i was intrigued by the their situation, and taboos. the Spanish girl daniel day lewis lover, wrote about the ethnic chip on omar's shoulder. i found her review interesting. it does sum up issues omar is dealing with. such as acculturation. though i do find his inability to adapt to either culture (according to her review) a personal problem, and decision. do you have to choose? is there an imposed division? yes. self imposed. she mentions looking down on poor whites, as his family of criminal immigrants have their own form of snobbery (her words) and apparently this "ethnic" issue colors his life. considering that he is sleeping with one of those poor whites. in addition to considering arranged marriage. above all the characters were not valuable. no matter how much $$$ omar & family have, he will never be white, or heterosexual. boo hoo. that should be okay. personal issues. with the themes of racism homosexuality and ethnicity, this movie should have been better. the only appeal here is the beauty of the 2 lead actors, and the ending, not their performance. i would pass on this one, but YOU wouldn't know that unless you see for yourself. i wouldn't recommend it, so i don't.

Starring a very young and dashing Daniel Day-Lewis and an relatively unknown but charming Gordon Warnecke, this is a movie set in the 1980s in the UK and deals with the issues of that time. It's a very subtle film that keeps you pondering what the characters are thinking and why they do the things they do. The two leads are very good-looking (together, too) and share a certain chemistry that's very at ease and comfortable, much like their relationship. No budding romance, they kind of just meld together and deal with the things that happen in the film.Mostly it deals with race issues and subtle homophobia. Omar (Warnecke) is smart and rather cunning, trying to make the business his uncle gives him successful. He employs a childhood friend and street punk (who he hasn't seen since he left school), Johnny (Day-Lewis) to help him run the business and deal with the riff-raff. The two have to deal with the expectations of Omar's family and the snide remarks Johnny's street "friends" make about him working for a Paki.(Also, some people who watched the film got confused about Tania's role in all this?? I thought it was obvious. She made advances on Omar but didn't get any reaction. Omar gets pressured to ask for her hand in marriage from his family, but nothing really comes of it. Johnny gets jealous and goes gallivanting with Tania to make Omar jealous. But all this happens in a very quiet way i.e. their intentions aren't clear unless you think about it. In the end Tania realizes they only have eyes for each other and she was kind of a pawn in their plans)I can't help but add that the two leads are super hot together. I like the secondary and tertiary characters too. The film feels very real and believable. Kind of slice of life but bigger.

This movie is quintessentially 1980s Britain. The look, the music, the people and the love of money--all stereotypes of the 80s. However, what is NOT the essence of the 80s is that the film is about Pakistanis who live in the UK and are becoming wealthy at the expense of everything else--this is unique to this film. What is also very unique is that later in the film there is a gay subplot--something that came as a bit of a surprise as homosexuality wasn't often talked about in the 80s--at least not compared to today.The film is about a young and very money-hungry man, Omar. And, to help him earn his fortune, he goes to work for his even more money-hungry uncle. The uncle, either to test him or to punish him, gives him the unenviable job of running a crappy laundromat. And, through some very underhanded means, Omar and his friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis) make the place a success. But, this is only at the midway point in the film--what's next? Well, see it is it sounds like your sort of thing.While I appreciated the risks the film took and its unusual plot, I found the movie pretty awful. No one was the least bit likable and I just didn't care about any of these soulless jerks. As social commentary, the film does work--as entertainment, it doesn't.

"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.