User reviews

A rare instance of magic-realism that actually works in the cinema. The realism is a scrupulously observed portrait of 80s London, its people (entrepreneurs, drunks, racists, wide-boys), locales (dingy flats, delapidated laundrettes, murky car lots) and attitudes (strutting capitalism, dessicated liberalism, farcical extremism).

The magic comes from Frears' style, tweaking and heightening the real; from stylised scenes such as Omar's reuniting with Johnny; from some magical set-pieces, especially the opening of the laundrette, Omar and Johnny making love cut with Nasser and Rachel's waltz; from the clashing of an exotic, Oriental world in a determinedly materialist context.

Kureishi's script is occasionally heavy-handed, but sex is never far from his analyses of power and identity - Omar's crucial tirade against Johnny has a thrilling, Genet-esque frisson.

We saw this movie when it was first released on the big screen. It just happen to start when we needed a movie to so we had no idea what to expect. What a pleasant surprise this film was. Daniel Day Lewis (in one of his earliest roles) stars with Gordon Warnecke in this unconventional love story. Warnecke plays young Omar, who is given the opprtunity to run his uncle's laundrette. He enlists the aid of his ex-lover, Johnny (played by Lewis) to get the business back on it's feet. The scene in the laundrette that includes Omar and Johnny in the foreground and Omar's uncle and his mistress in the background, is one of the most sensual celluloid scenes I ever scene.

If you are looking for something good and out of the ordinary, I would recommend this one.

For its time MBL was a break through movie. London is a very complicated place for colonials and for punks. As the friendship between the boys develops- complications arise. What I liked about this film was its unpretentiousness. You can hear and almost smell the various neighborhoods of London. And Daniel Day Lewis certainly showed his potential for the star he would become.

'My Beautiful Laundrette' takes a look at the 80's local life within the Asian communities in England and between the British Southeast Asians and the British Caucasians. What I loved about this film is that it presents its themes without going overboard to explain or to resolve anything. When we see a relationship develop between Omar and Johnny, one would expect to see them get attacked for it and then expect a preachy message like gays have rights too but there is nothing like that. There are scenes where the British Asians are being humiliated but this too does not lead to a bloodbath of sorts. It is all downplayed and subtle. It's about the characters, rather than a social message (but that's there too).

'My Beautiful Laundrette' mainly centres around Omar and his relationship with Johnny. Hanif Kureishi is known for telling tales about unconventional relationships and I thought it was great that both characters were shown to be open about their relationships in spite of their background. I mean they weren't screaming from the roof or anything but these two individuals did not care what others would think concerning their relationships. Frears deserves full marks for telling the story in such a raw, real, humorous and coherent way. The humour too is subtle and dry and flows well through the story.

The renovated laundrette too plays a crucial role. It is a place of comfort for Omar and Johnny, kind of like a home they built and decorated. The customers are amused by the beauty of it. A fascinated Nasser dances with his girlfriend while the customers eagerly wait outside. Thus, it becomes a place of comfort for many.

The characters are well etched. Both their strength and fragility is well displayed by the actors. Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke are excellent as Johnny and Omar. Day-Lewis brilliantly brings out Johnny's vulnerable and passionate side while on the exterior he appears as a tough and scary guy. Likewise Warnecke too effectively portrays Omar's determination and passion. A charismatic Saeed Jaffrey is phenomenal as the cheerful helpful uncle who goes through his own transformation. Rita Wolf is wonderful as the daughter who's in search of her own identity. Roshan Seth is good as the whiny father. The rest of the cast do well.

Pretty much all the characters are in search of something except that Omar and Johnny find what they want and Nasser loses what he had. The film does not end by providing a solution for everyone. And that is one of the many brilliance of it as it reflects that everyone has their own life to deal with and questions will arise but life goes on and it is up to us to choose the answer.

Simply great.

This colorful slice of lowbrow English life has many things working in its favor: character, ingenuity, humor, and (the essential asset for such a modest production) unpredictability. What it doesn't have is a budget, making the film look and sound like a cheap made-for-TV movie, hardly surprising since it was, in fact, produced for British television (a remarkably permissive institution, by American network standards at the time). But a well-written script doesn't (fortunately) need to cost an arm and a leg, and the perceptive screenplay by Hanif Kureishi has a lot on its mind, tossing off social, sexual, and political commentary with subtle insight and brazen wit. It may seem as if his story, about an unemployed (and otherwise unmotivated) young Pakistani and his amiable Anglo-Punk boyfriend, who conspire to beat the system by opening a trendy, upscale Laundromat using money stolen from a local crime syndicate, relies at times too heavily on idiosyncratic behavior and eccentric charm (other films should have such problems). But it all ends happily ever after, doubly so for director Stephan Frears and actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who were both catapulted into the international arena by the film's success.

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.

During a wave of the sudden "discovery " of Britasian writers in the mid-1980s, My Beautiful Laundrette was touted by Channel 4 as a milestone of British cinema.

It was cool to suggest this film epitomised Thatcher's Britain. While it unveiled some insights of first and second generation Britasians, much of this film seems like a taxi ride: a series of vignettes, many placed purely for shock value. It was a decade when script editors picked up writers who failed to grasp the importance of structure and craft and this film is now more of a showcase for that era of storytelling.

Nice in spots. A bumpy ride with disconnected threads. Unfortunately, Thatcher's Britain was far more organised than this movie's subtext suggests

High marks for effort. Especially from the lead actors. They carried the move from one bemused stop to another.

It figures this movie was not made in the USA... If it was, then main gay characters would either have to get killed or at least decently commit, or try to commit, suicide, get castigated or openly persecuted or both for their sexuality, and of course there would have to be a gays-are-people-too sermon somewhere in there. In fact, in this movie, while the gays may not have it easy, neither does anyone else; while in fact the non-gays get much more s--t than our two gay heroes, who seem to playing everybody off of each other anyway. You keep expecting someone to burst in upon their smooching or harassing them on the street or some other such low-down thing, but no (and knowing this makes it so much more easy to watch the second time)! To the Hollywood-weaned watcher, the start is slow and you don't quite know which way things are going, but we are very naturally eased into the two guys' relationship. It's very sweet, Romeo and Jules-like stuff. And like other reviewers mention, it is also so natural and well- made (and carried so many other taboos) that gay seems barely to be the issue. It is not a happy ending for many of the main characters in the movie, but life goes on. Just like life actually does.

Some films you should never re-visit and this is one of them. The 1980's was a troubled time, overshadowed by AIDS and many social problems. I have read reviews here mentioning magic realism ( a trend of troubled times as a form of intellectual escapism ) and this film attempted to make us escape while dealing with both racism and homosexuality. A few worthy heterosexuals played around with homosexuality and through my critical eyes failed. Omar and Johnny are opening a laundrette and in the climate of the times this seemed a daring thing to do, marrying ( no pun intended ) two gay lovers that epitomised for the times both racism and homophobia. Straights were grateful, and a lot of gay people were grateful as well that such a subject could be moving and brave. Sadly I could not quite believe in it then and especially from an independent Gay/Queer film perspective in recent decades I find it tiresome. Daniel Day-Lewis attempted authenticity but seemed unfit for the character he was supposed to portray. Both ' Another Country ' and ' Beautiful Thing ' are also Gay themed films which I did not quite believe in and it took the 21st C. to shake up things and in the main from France. ' God's Own Country ' is the one film from the UK that I thought 100% succeeded. It is good to re-visit the past sometimes and to wonder why we were as Gay people so ready to accept the crumbs from heterosexual tables. But then maybe they got us through to less homophobic times.

This film feels kind of sloppily put together and not thoroughly explored in terms of characters, themes, cultures, etc. I found it difficult to follow, with characters flitting about, making odd decisions, and the repercussions being suggested rather than explored. I felt like the homosexual themes, and the cultural struggles weren't well explored, and therefore the movie ended up being rather meaningless.

My Beautiful Laundrette is one of the most over-hyped movies I've ever seen.

But then again there's an explanation: As one of the first ever real gay-themed movies, it was praised just for the very fact it talked about the Pakistani community and had a gay aspect. Two things that just weren't done before.

But does it make it a good movie? No. It's long, boring, difficult to understand because it jumps from scene to scene without ever really settling on anything, and there are two many characters introduced at the same time (most with mind-numbingly boring story lines), too many things that are implied but never really said out loud. It could be "subtle" but it just ends up being "confusing".

In the end, it's a movie that wants to be about being gay, but also about being Pakistani in London, but also about being a white thug / homeless young guy in 80s London, but also about being a young closeted guy, and also about a guy turning an old business into a new shiny one, while also being about drug dealers, and about standing up to your community for love (a la Romeo and Juliette). In short, the film never knows what it wants to be about, and all is lost.

I think most people who love this movie are the people who saw it when it had just come out and THEY had just come out as well (or were about to, or something) - I'm sure there's a very emotional connection to this movie for a lot of people, that is completely unrelated to the actual film's worth.

A classic film in my book, My Beautiful Laundrette is the story of Omar, a young restless Asian man caring for his alcoholic father in Thatcherite London. Escape comes in the form of his uncles many and varied business ventures,...

Anyone who experienced anything of life in '80's Britain will recognise the craving for instant financial success. Similarly I am sure Asian viewers will recognise the struggles inherent in finding an identity in a country which is your home but which can never feel quite like your real home.

Omar dreams of success so works to achieve it...along the way he meets up with old school-friend Johnny, who has betrayed him by falling in with a group of neo-nazi's. Omar soon has Johnny working for him and his uncle. Turning the tables on him as he is made to rely on the very people he has been taught to hate. The chemistry between Omar and Johnny is palpable and their relationship handled totally matter-of-factly. About the only part of the film not trying to score any political points is the gay relationship. There is a "so-what" attitude and no-one comes out at any point. And why should they?

Tension in the film is far more the result of socio-economic and racial inequalities. The whole thing is handled with grace, charm and wit. Anyone remotely familier with British film in particular will note the starry casting of supporting roles, though Danial Day Lewis is - now - the biggest star of the show. Here he shows the real substance behind his fame - more so than in any other film of his seen to date. The cast is universally excellent and the unique shooting, pacing and dialogue, quite quite brilliant.

Some of the shots in this film could be used as a template for brilliance...An unexpected kiss in a dark alley is easily the most erotic single shot I have seen in a film.

Despite a few reviews I have read claiming otherwise, I don't believe you need to be gay or Asian to get something out of this picture. Living in Britain may help, though it's a lot less than essential.......

And hey! Wouldn't you love to throw your knickers into the washing machines of a neon-lit music-filled laudrette from heaven run by two insatiably young and energetic lovers?

Well I would anyway! Pass the detergent this way please!

Having recently rewatched My Beautiful Laundrette I was surprised by how specific it feels to a certain place and time (1980's London). That's not necessarily a bad thing but just kind of interesting. The script and story are a bit unpolished, but the motivations, feelings, and emotions of the characters still manage to shine through. Even though there's a gay connection between two of the characters, defining this film as a gay romance or anything of the sort is a misrepresentation in my opinion. It's a kind of quirky but heartfelt film that will not be for everyone, but if you're curious then definitely check it out.

"My Beautiful Laundrette" is most commonly advertised as a drama and comedy, though the richly symbolic romantic aspect between the main two boys is what quietly takes the show. I have never seen a relationship in film that comes close to the classic, inspiring, well-known pair of Johnny and Omar.

Johnny, who seemingly takes the lead in their sexual and romantic relationship, is a white, rough-and-tumble street punk caught up in a small gang and going nowhere. Omar is a bright-eyed, handsome Pakistani boy who takes care of his father, and when a taste of work comes his way, wants nothing more than "big money" and to prove the country he lives in will not beat him. Johnny's lust and love for Omar is apparent from the start, and in a handsomely unique and unpredictable fashion, their business relationship is reversed on terms of who leads who, providing an interesting dynamic between them.

Omar's warm, eager demeanor and Johnny's quiet, sideways glances tell the audience about the previous foundation of their past relationship within the first twenty seconds of their meeting. I couldn't imagine that sort of raw, unspoken integrity ever being so successfully accomplished without these two actors and the fantastic chemistry between their characters.

Johnny's absolute loyalty to Omar is heartwarming, promising, and honest. He wants nothing more than to prove his love and partnership with everything he has, and he offers it all - his work, his love, and sex. Omar reciprocates his love with forgiveness and, despite being the boss in their business relationship, his consistent admiration toward Johnny is apparent, deep and romantic. He changes into a more confident and proud man with Johnny by his side.

Daniel Day-Lewis(Johnny) and Gordon Warnecke(Omar)'s performances were, I will say once more, just spectacular. I have never seen any bit of film quite as passionate, honest nor as erotic as the scene where Johnny and Omar make love. I've been inspired by seeing the tenderness and moving passion of both their love and general partnership - their compatibility is demonstrated by their determination to stay together, despite what happens in the midst of the insanity the film provides.

I will say that it is also very real, however, and therefore it does have its rough moments and ups and downs like any relationship between two people should. I won't say too much aside from that I thought the ending was sweet and it took me by surprise, not bothering with a few loose ties if only to inspire lovely ambiguity.

There is much more to "My Beautiful Laundrette" than Johnny and Omar's romantic relationship, but the symbolism it serves - as representing the hopeful future, their business, how the world sees them - relates to all aspects of the film. Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke's performances alone are enough of a reason to give it a watch.

If you'd like to see a smart, witty, beautiful love story rich in symbolism and more substance than a single review could do justice for, I'd recommend you do yourself a favor by watching "My Beautiful Laundrette."

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.

"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.

I watched this movie because my wife wanted to see it. I didn't have very high expectations for it and I knew what the plot would be because I had read the IMDb summary. I've happened to watch some movies lately which have been way better than the ratings they've had but this one most definitely does not go into that bunch. The plot did go through following some weird script but the problem was that they probably had cut away a lot events that were not central. Scenes would end abruptly or jump to a totally different scene or atmosphere. It made the characters and events a tad too hard to follow. At many points during the movie I was baffled at why the characters did what they did. However, if the point was to depict the chaotic life of people living on the streets and how they supposedly don't behave rationally, this movie succeeded in that goal.

The movie is defined as comedy/drama/romance. There were a few funny things I laughed, I admit, but not nearly enough to warrant a comedy definition. Mostly the movie was drama and romance. The drama was OK, all the characters had problems with life and so on and they tried to cope with the difficult and unfair situations they encountered themselves in. The romance part...well, not my thing here. I guess the movie tried to be provocative and probably was back in 1985 when it was first released but now it was just a bit silly. There was this "dangerous love" element in it and it just didn't work out. The script was no good and the actors quite stiff.

Also, the sounds were horrible. I don't even know how you can fail with 80's music but this movie did just that.

If you are looking for a movie with such a love theme as this one I guess the movie will be OK for you as my wife informed me that the movie was OK but for me it was a pain to watch through.

"My Beautiful Launderette" is a mixed bag of touching and powerful moments, somewhat boring lulls in the story, and moral ambiguity. It's mostly about Omar and his life as a Pakistani in Britain; a great deal of it is about families, their bonds, and their conflicts; significant parts of it are about Omar's relationship with Johnny, which means that the film is dealing with a lot of material. For a film with so many aspects, it's too short.

Some will argue that, seeing as it's not the main focus of the film, Omar and Johnny's relationship had a fitting amount of time devoted to it, but their relationship raises so many questions that I found myself wishing it was more central. What exactly was their friendship like when they were young? It's implied that they've had a romantic relationship before the film starts, but why did that end up on hiatus? Aside from being at a certain place in a certain time, what other factors contribute to Johnny's acceptance of Omar, later prejudice, and final love and devotion? The ambiguity is distracting as opposed to lending itself to interpretation.

The dynamics of Omar's family - his businessman uncle, his sick father who was a journalist in Pakistan but now is poor and unrenowned, his ambitious cousin who wants to develop her own life and sees Omar as a means to that end - are well-acted and realistic. In fact, the acting is good all around, which helps in the moments where it seems the plot is taking its time moving from one development to the other, without much substance in between action.

"My Beautiful Launderette" is definitely worth seeing, at least once if not twice, but, having made the decision to put the protagonist in a tumultuous and intriguing romance, the filmmakers should have spent more time on that aspect.

With all the high ratings, I might be missing something. This is the worst movie I've ever seen. Bored from beginning to end.