Synopsis
Every dream has its price.
An undocumented immigrant finds a human heart in one of the toilets of the west London hotel where he works with other undocumented immigrants.
Dirty Pretty Things
2002 Directed by Stephen Frears
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Alternative Titles
Negocios Entrañables, 天使夜驚情, Loin de chez eux
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Thrillers and murder mysteries High speed and special ops Politics and human rights spy, agent, intrigue, thriller or suspense terrorism, thriller, gripping, intense or political emotion, storytelling, powerful, poetic or captivating nazi, war, wwii, hitler or jewish marriage, emotion, romance, feelings or relationships Show All…
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Middlebrow movie about immigration and the dehumanizing conditions foreigners are forced to live and work in.
Scratch all that. It sounds far too depressing. This movie is shot like a Soderbergh heist film. It has cool lighting, bold colors, and hip characters. If it was as really depressing as all that, it wouldn't feel so fun.
That is where this film exists. In a space between serious social commentary and flashy genre cool. The Soderbergh is apt if for no other reason that he has made a few films that exist in this nether region of cinema history.
If you are looking for a reason why everyone loves Chiwetel Ejiofor (besides SERENITY and CHILDREN OF MEN) and why everyone loves…
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Dirty Pretty Things. 2002. Directed by Stephen Frears.
“Glass, Concrete and Stone.” David Byrne
Byrne’s song sums this film up. Mostly. A friend of mine was a neurosurgeon from a country I will not mention. The United States would not let him take our medical boards. So, he went back to medical school garnered an education and a ton of debt. He graduated, became a neurosurgeon at Vanderbilt. Now, he is in at a different hospital. But, he had a tough time with our system and English as a second language. So, I helped him. We have been friends for twenty years. Dirty Pretty Things was recommended to me by this close colleague and Dr. For that, I am appreciative.
Own. Purchased on AppleTV at least 10 years ago.
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Enjoyed this a lot more than I expected and got invested in it’s world. We have a young Benedict Wong before the MCU and Chiwetal Ejifor before 12 years of slave (2013). Also stars Audrey Tatou after the success of Amélie (2001). I love the grimy tone and color palette featuring blue and orange backgrounds. It’s about two immigrants who discover some shady things going on in the hotel and from there, they slowly get involved and try to get out. The inciting incident kicks things off in an interesting way, when Ejifor’s character is called in to check up on a room and find something clogged in the toilet. In the morning, he runs errands and does many jobs,…
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You know, Okwe, good at chess usually means bad at life.
-Guo YiWhen me and the missus are in the mood for a movie, but don't already have one in mind it usually means trouble. If we're going out to see one it's not so bad, we just pick the best possible one out of a limited choice. Staying home though... between a ridiculous Blu-ray collection, NetFlix, Hulu and other options we can sometimes waste up to an hour before finding something to agree on. Admittedly going out of my way suggesting bad horror films doesn't help the situation, but if you can't annoy the shit out of the person you live with, what's the point of living with…
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Cinematic Time Capsule
2002 Marathon - Film #121”He swapped his insides for a passport…”
When Chiwetel Ejiofor discovers that some hearts just can’t be flushed, he teams up with Benedict Wong and a Turkish Amélie to prove there’s nothing so dangerous as a virtuous man.
Stephen Frears brings us this grim and grimy film of desperate immigrants struggling to survive in an underground that’s grittier than gravel toothpaste.
”My whole business is based on happiness”
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A four to six hour miniseries squashed into an hour and fourty minutes. This has every single problem you'd imagine would stem from that concept.
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Many may have on recently discovered Chiwetel Ejiofor thanks to his Oscar nominated turn in 12 Years a Slave, but the truth is the man has been turning in great performances for years. Dirty Pretty Things was one I hadn't seen until today, but true to form Ejiofor is once again excellent and shows his fantastic range as an actor.
In this Stephen Frears thriller Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a medically trained Nigerian immigrant working as a taxi driver and a concierge to get by. He shares a room with Senay, (Amélie's Audrey Tautou making her english language debut) a Turkish refugee who works at the same hotel as Okwe. As immigrants they live in fear of being deported. One…
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Stephen Frears is a splendid director and has been for over 40 years now. He is certainly one of those directors that has done far, far more good to great films than the vast majority of people realise.
Gumshoe and The Hit were two of the most surprisingly enjoyable and impressive films that I saw last year, and on top of The Queen (so to speak, that's treason!) and High Fidelity and various TV pieces he has done over the years, it's fair to say I have been singularly impressed by what I have seen from him.
That record continued almost effortlessly with Dirty Pretty Things, a poorly titled and postered drama about an illegal immigrant (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his…
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This was the first film I saw in a theater in LA. It was at the Pasadena Playhouse 7 and I deliberately chose a film I wouldn't have been able to see back in North Carolina or Virginia. I didn't know much about this and it blew 20-year-old me away. The writing, Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance, the characters I had never seen before, all of it. I thought this was what serious filmmaking is all about!
I've seen a lot more films since then (including more Stephen Frears films) and I'm not 20 years old anymore so I was pretty sure this was not going to hold up to memory. And it doesn't. But it does remain criminally underrated and for…
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Like one of Danny Boyle's smaller films...except directed by Stephen Frears, a restless modern British thriller based on social class themes (in this case illegal immigrants), headlined by well-chosen should-be-marquee name actors (then nascent but already alluring Chiwetel Ejiofor and just-barely-post-"Amelie" Audrey Tautou), with some style and spark sculpted out of a spare budget and digital specs. Not altogether unique or special, maybe because it presents itself so modestly, but while it's got you by the hand, you'll be into it, and moved by where these characters end up in the closing scenes.
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