Coisas Belas e Sujas

Stephen Frears is one of the few directors who delivers consistent good work. This movies is quite top in every aspect. It ranks for me equally to Dangerous Liaisons and My Beautiful Laundrette. The whole cast is superb including Sergi Lopez and Audrey Toutou. Chris Menges lensing is slick and appropriate. One of the years best. Highly recommand.

Who on earth wrote the last commentary?

While I might agree that the movie appears 'preachy' compared with typical Hollywood crap which is incapable of analysis, this movie portrays non-Americans in a non-American world. It is subtle, entertaining, excels with its dark humor, and is an accurate portrayal of what immigrants suffer - not only in London, but around the globe.

What on earth prompted the terrorist comment also? Sheesh.

I suggest that this movie deserves deeper reflection, is not preachy like a Michael Moore, and goes about its business subtly and intelligently. A pleasure to watch.

Having enjoyed watching Audrey Tautou in "Amelie," I decided to give this a look. I've done that in several other of her films since then, too, and always with the same result: the films stink. I guess she peaked with "Amelie."

Like others, I also got suckered in on the reviews which said this was "a sensational thriller.....gripping suspense." Yeah, right. I never pay attention to that nonsense anymore. Movies like this taught me to disregard any "hype."

Folks, this is very little suspense in this film. I kept waiting and waiting for it. The only thing that kept me interested were Audrey's big beautiful eyes and Chiwtel Ejiofor's interesting character "Okwe." It's not a bad film; just not as good as advertised which makes the viewer disappointed.

An interesting twist in this film was having people of "color" playing Caucasian roles. Wow, that's a switch from the old classic-era days. It also was Tautou's first English-speaking role, and she was fine with that. (She's French.)

The story is simply of how Britain blackmailed some immigrants into donating body parts, such as a kidney, to give them status so they wouldn't be deported. I agree: if that really happened, it's outrageous.

Overall, I would rate it as "fair," and maybe give it a sixth star for the nice colors in here and the fact that it's also low on profanity. You could do a whole lot worse but just don't expect a suspenseful film, either.

`Dirty Pretty Things' is a thriller interrupted by a love story. The immigrant Brit working class is sometimes depicted by this film's director Stephen Frears (`My Beautiful Laundrette'); the native Brits are often championed by Mike Leigh (`Secrets and Lies'). In both cases, the kitchen sink realism does not fail to wake up middle-class Anglophiles like me.

Nigerian doctor Okwe hides in London behind 2 jobs as cabbie and night porter. He lives with, but does not sleep with, Turkish chambermaid Senay (played by `Amelie's' Audrey Tautou). Though they both hide from immigration officials, they cannot hide from their love. Okwe remains loyal to his Nigerian wife and daughter, and Senay has enough surviving to do to keep herself from Okwe.

After he finds a human heart in a hotel room, his own heart is changed forever. He becomes aware of low-life trafficking in organs and aware that as a doctor he could relieve many pains by helping the transplant operations. When the bloody business hits home, Frears lets us suffer with Okwe while he decides if his conventional morality can adjust to the underworld's impossible demands. The decision is not easy because his boss, Sneaky (the talented Sergi Lopez from `With a Friend like Harry'), regales him with the sophistry that crime like this is good for everyone involved (for instance, a doctor performing an operation rather than letting a hack do damage).

My worldly-wise companion and I debated Okwe's dilemma without a firm conclusion about the ethics of this end justifying the means. Frears caught us in the middle-class complacency of professionals who easily trip to London not even thinking about the workers who will attend to us--those shadow people we will never see, the disenfranchised a heartbeat away from jail or deportation. As for their love lives, who has time?

The screenwriter, Steven Knight, created the original Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? `Dirty' is leagues away from that fantasy game show, but then again the immigrants of this film are just as much moved by the slim chance of finding a home somewhere in the world.

It's the love story between Okwe and Senay that entrances me. I can't remember when I was so pleased by seeing the power of mutual respect turning into love and impossibility as I have been here. Of course, the consummate acting is a big help (You'll completely forget airhead Amelie when you see Tautou out of Paris and in the streets of London).

`Dirty Pretty Things' is an example of excellent filmmaking art without artifice.

"Dirty Pretty Things," a film directed by Stephen Frears is not quite a thriller, romance or a drama, but it does manage to fit all three successfully.

An illegal immigrant in London (Chiwetel Ejiofor), working a day job as a cab driver and a hotel clerk in the Baltic Hotel at nights, discovers a human heart stuck in the bottom of a hotel room toilet one night and worries about what goes on behind the closed doors of his hotel. In the meantime, he develops a friendship with an immigrant woman from Turkey (Audrey Tatou ) who is also just trying to get by first as a maid in the hotel, then, as a seamstress in a sweatshop.

Acting by everybody, especially by two leads is wonderful. I am so glad to see Tatou in the part very different from her Amelie. The story is gripping; and we see London the way we have not seen it before and did not even know that London exists.

An engrossing human drama, stylish noir, social commentary, lives of immigrants, characters study - with the characters deep, human, and very real. No cheap pulling the strings, no manipulation. As a result -one of the best films of the last year.

And that ending.... Fans of "Lost in Translation" - watch "Dirty Pretty Things", and then we'll talk about what the good ending is.