I rewatched this movie for the second time and I still can't believe it was made in 1985 and it's still as relevant today as it was in the 80's. This movie was ahead of its time and is too underrated. I absolutely love the take on Omar and Johnny, and their blossoming romance among the other plot. I just love how they don't bother explaining about their relationship, it' just is there, like in many movies with romantic plot lines. Great movie, everyone should see this. And I loved the ending.

Johnny Burfoot (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a squatter in rundown abandoned houses. Hussein "Papa" Ali gets his son Omar a job with his successful uncle Nasser at his car wash. Papa is a drunken disillusioned socialist reporter from Bombay. Omar gets hassled by a group of whites but he is saved by their leader Johnny who is his childhood friend. Nasser lets Omar manage the run down laundrette. Omar hires Johnny to work for him.Director Stephen Frears brings some of the new Pakistani flavor into his London movie. I don't think Gordon Warnecke is particularly nuanced and is not really leading man material. Frears has the great fortune of casting Daniel Day-Lewis. He's wonderful and so is Roshan Seth. The look is more or less TV production level. This has some very compelling scenes dealing with very serious issues.

Under the iron curtain of Thatcherism in the 1980s, UK veteran Stephen Frears' fourth feature film is an ethnic barrier-breaker in the world queer cinema, much as its fervid confrontations between races and social classes, the central closeted romance between an ex-punk Johnny (Day-Lewis) and a Pakistani Briton Omar (Warnecke) is nurtured with robust intimacy and élan. Enclosed by a synth-pop heavy pulse, the film starts with Johnny and his gang being expelled from their squatting apartment by some heavies, a similar territory Daniel Day-Lewis would retread in IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993), then cutting to introduce another protagonist, Omar, a college dropout sent to work for his uncle Nasser (Jaffrey) by his bed-ridden father (Seth), a disillusioned idealist and leftist), in Nasser's car-washing lot, Omar meets Nasser's business partner Salim (Branche), a menacing and overbearing bully who conducts some seedy business and Nasser's mistress Rachel (Anne Field), who assumes a quite modernized view of being the other woman, but the entire entanglement will end up with some ludicrous witchcraft. Omar is ambitious and fast-learning, soon he gets the permission to run Nasser's dilapidated laundromat, and reunites with Johnny, who has been his best friend since childhood, together they embezzle the dough from Salim's underhand drug smuggling and refurbish the laundrette and make a successful business, their romance is also rekindled. But at the same time, Omar is obliged by Nasser to marry his disobedient daughter Tania (Wolf), and Johnny is reckoned as a betrayer by his ne'er-do-well gang members since he is working for Palestinians (also as an unscrewer for kick out Nasser's impecunious tenants), in addition to the conflict between Omar and Salim, there will be blood in the end. Violence is a requisite in depicting the gulf between well-off immigrants and poverty-stricken native malcontents, xenophobia, racial bias and chauvinism, all can be easily related and incited under the harsh environs, but Frears doesn't attempt to make a point by resorting too much to the excesses, whereas the tender, masculine attraction between two men is rendered with cozy panache and passion, truly, it is an in-the-closet relationship, but it is not about coming-out or AIDs, these routine trappings of the era, their future might be a moot point, however, the virtue of their love strikes as comfortingly authentic and endearing, thanks to the great pair Warnecke and Day-Lewis, one is resolutely sincere and the other is overwhelmingly charismatic, they do make a desirable couple together! Juxtaposed with its peers like MAURICE (1987, 7/10) and ANOTHER COUNTRY (1984, 8/10), MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE's grassroots ambiance and buoyant undertones applicably complement the missing piece of the UK queer cinema menagerie, not revolutionary, but a wonderful bliss indeed.

Maybe it's the fact that the film's very British and very eighties but how can this possibly score 6.9 whereas tripe like Good Will Hunting gets 8? Sometimes I despair at the reviewers on here.Anyway, back to the film. Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young Asian guy who goes to work for his Thatcherite uncle (Saeed Jaffrey). His ambition is to renovate his uncle's run-down laundrette. He gets in his white mate Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) to give him a hand and the two guys fall in love.My Beautiful Laundrette completely encapsulates the zeitgeist of 1980's Britain, tackling everything from racial tension, immigration, generation differences, class differences, Thatcherism and homosexuality. I say 'tackle'- it's presented but the viewer is allowed to make their own minds up. This is primarily a coming-of-age film and on that level it can appeal to everyone.As for the arguments that you can only like this film if you fit into one of the criteria portrayed here or the period it was set in, they're completely ridiculous. So, we can only like Schindler's List if we're a Nazi or a Jew and were alive in the forties? Come on people. The only criteria I fit in with this film is that I live in Britain- not even London, where the film's set.What a lot of people dislike about the film is that it portrays a lot of the tensions happening in Britain but it does so on a very human level. No character is just a victim of the state. It's a light romantic comedy that lets us see the violence and racism but doesn't linger, making it more powerful when things do happen.As for the relationship between Omar and Johnny, it's portrayed very tenderly (and very sexily, though tasteful). What is rare for a 'gay film'- a label given to any film that has gay characters in- is that the characters aren't tortured over their sexuality or punished. It's just portrayed as a normal loving relationship and the two actors- both straight- are very convincing.Now Daniel Day Lewis has bagged his third Oscar, breaking the record for Best Actor, how does he fare in a very early film in his career? I really enjoyed his performance- you can see there's something about him, even at this age. His facial structure is outstanding- he looks very striking. And there's none of the mannerisms you might expect from an actor destined to do well. He comes across as a fresh talent- which he was.