Dirty Pretty Things

Plot synopsis:
Okwe is an illegal Nigerian immigrant to the United Kingdom who drives a cab in London during the day and works at the front desk of a hotel at night. The hotel is staffed with many immigrants, both legal and illegal. Okwe keeps himself awake by chewing khat, an herbal stimulant. A doctor in his home country, he was forced to flee after being falsely accused of murdering his wife. In London, he is pressed into giving medical treatment to other poor immigrants, including fellow cab drivers with venereal diseases. Okwe's friend Guo Yi, an employee at a hospital mortuary, provides him with antibiotics under the table.
A prostitute known as Juliette, who plies her trade in the hotel, informs Okwe about a blocked toilet in one of the hotel rooms. He fishes out the blockage and finds a human heart. The manager of the hotel, Juan, runs an illegal operation at the hotel wherein immigrants swap kidneys for forged passports. After learning of Okwe's past as a doctor, Juan pressures him to join his operation as a surgeon, but Okwe refuses.
Senay is a Turkish Muslim seeking asylum, who also works at the hotel, as a cleaner. Her immigration status allows her to stay in the UK providing she does not work; the hotel is a perfect cover because she is not named on its books. She allows Okwe to sleep on her sofa when she is not home, her religion forbidding her from being alone with a man, other than a relative, at any time.
Senay is frightened after a visit from the Immigration service, and convinces Okwe to leave before the authorities find him in her home. The officials find a book of matches from the hotel and decide to inspect it before Senay arrives for her early morning shift. Okwe asks the doorman to intercept Senay; the officials don't catch her, but she can no longer work at the hotel. She begins working in a sweatshop making clothes, but the officials raid that site, too. The entire staff flee to the roof while the manager gets rid of the Immigration agents. The manager will let Senay keep her job and promises not to report her to the authorities only if she will perform oral sex on him. After a couple of such sessions, she refuses to cooperate and bites him, then flees with an expensive coat and some dresses.
Okwe finds her a place to stay at the hospital mortuary, but Senay panics. She asks him to raise money for her to travel to America by selling the stolen clothes and acting as a surgeon in Juan's organ business. Okwe refuses.
In desperation, Senay agrees to exchange a kidney for a passport. As a "deal maker", Juan takes her virginity as well, and later Juliette provides her with the morning-after pill. After learning of Senay's plan, Okwe tells Juan that he will perform the operation to ensure her safety, but only if Juan provides them both with passports under different names. After Juan delivers the passports, Okwe and Senay drug him, surgically remove his kidney, and sell it to Juan's contact.
Okwe plans to use his new identity to return to his young daughter in Nigeria, and Senay plans to start a new life in New York City. Before they part at Stansted Airport, she gives him her cousin's address in New York. They mouth the words, "I love you", to each other. Senay boards her plane, and Okwe calls long-distance to his daughter to tell her he is coming home at last.

Tags: suspenseful, neo noir, realism, romantic

Review:
Much buzz, fortunately all merited, preceded it: an amazing Nigerian actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, already acclaimed for his stage performances, makes his big-screen debut, while Audrey Tatou, the impossibly wide-eyed kook from 2001's `Amelie', tackles her first English-language movie role.Frears' film details the story of those faceless, nameless human beings of a variety of ethnicities, who, for a multitude of reasons--all marked by desperation--sneak into England.
Prostitution and drugs are routine phenomena, but when he finds a human heart clogging a toilet in one of the rooms, Okwe realizes that something far more sinister is afoot.For the illegal immigrants portrayed in the film, it is an ongoing struggle to hold onto some semblance of integrity, humanity, and dignity, as the Society around them exploits and hounds them mercilessly, safe in the knowledge that nothing would be reported to the authorities.
Interestingly, though this film is set in London, none of the main characters is English:  there's Juliette, an ironically-named feisty West Indian hooker who plies her trade in the hotel; Ivan, the Russian doorman; Senor Juan or `Sneaky', another hotel employee who makes use of the hotel for his own money-making schemes; Gou Yi, a Chinese night porter in a morgue; a motley collection of Somali, Nigerian, and Kenyan men who work at the cab company, and the South Asian owner of a sweatshop.
Benedict Wong and Sophie Okonedo are first-rate, too, as the philosophical chess-playing morgue-worker buddy of Okwe and Juliette the rebellious prostitute respectively.`Dirty Pretty Things', brilliantly written by Steve Knight, maintains its unpredictability right up to its surprise ending.
"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 London, the Nigerian illegal immigrant and former doctor Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) works as cab driver along the day and in the front desk of a hotel managed by Juan 'Sneaky' (Sergi López) in the graveyard shift.
The great surprise for me was the international cast, leaded by the unknown Chiwetel Ejiofor, followed by the excellent Audrey 'Amélie Poulain' Tautou and Sergi 'Harry' López , and the also unknown Sophie Okonedo, all of them with excellent performances.
First off I want to say that I'm not going to write about neither the plot nor the contents of this film, while it's rather unnecessary.The best way to describe "Dirty pretty things", is in my opinion, that it is like a beautiful poem.
At times you actually forget that you are watching a film.Chiwetel Ejiofor, Audrey Tautou, Sergi López and the rest of the brilliant cast were new to me but I am going to keep following their careers, as I am hopeful that they will rise and get recognized for the great actors that they are.I strongly recommend this film, for it is most certainly like a breath of fresh air in the otherwise monotonous movie jungle...I easily give this film a 9 out of 10..
`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.
Always a good sign when a movie lasts.What works most is the beautiful filming and pace, and the steady, thoughtful, rather masterful performance by the lead man, Chiwetel Ejiofor.
The plot grows in strangeness, but never leaving the edgy reality of immigrant rich London, all modern and contradictory in the best cinematic ways.Director Stephen Frears has a "checkered" careersome real duds, and some stellar movies.
Here she is quirky and almost strange, but in a likable way, and by the end she is partly why you feel so strongly for Eijofor.The social point of this movie is a good underlying one—to show what life is really like for a large number of decent, hardworking people, many hiding from bureaucracy and immigration rules.
Apart from being shot like a TV drama, the story was ridiculous and all the characters apart from Okwe are flat and 1-dimensional, both in terms of script development and acting.I live in a part of London where if I walk down the street and hear someone speak English I turn my head in surprised.
But on the other, the story is so ridiculous, particularly the final twist, that you can't take it seriously.Typical of British film-making, this movie is caught between being entertaining and delivering some kind of social message.
Okwe has an arrangement with another illegal immigrant, a shy, Turkish woman named Senay (Audrey Tautou), wherein he uses her couch in her small room to catch a few winks during morning time when she reports to work in the same hotel he works in.
Stephen Frears turns Knight's script into an intriguing thriller, that's also a gut-wrenchingly potent drama centered around illegal immigrants in London.The story is told in a crisp fashion with some beautiful cinematography and commendable shot composition, and the preliminary scenario is established rather quickly but doesn't seem hurried or forced in any way.
Some lines of dialog including some oozing racial stereotyping are just too blatantly rude to be taken seriously.And then there are some character clichés like the helpful buddy (Guo, an Asian man who works at the hospital mortuary), the hooker with a heart of gold (Juliette), Senay's fat and horny old immigrant employer (Barber Ali, a sweatshop foreman) who not-surprisingly asks her for sexual favours in return for not revealing her identity or whereabouts to the hot on the trail immigration officials..
It has been said that desperate times call for desperate measures, a concept that director Stephen Frears explores to great success in "Dirty Pretty Things." Frears, whose previous films include "My Beautiful Laundrette" and "The Grifters," has a knack for getting inside his characters' minds and revealing their inner workings to his audience with heartfelt compassion.
Shortly thereafter, we see him sharing his illegal identity with his fellow drivers, for they are all in the same precarious position of trying to earn enough to survive while evading the immigration authorities.Also eluding the authorities is Senay (Audrey Tautou of last year's "Amelie"), a young Turkish woman who reluctantly shares her meager flat with Okwe in order to make ends meet on her equally meager and equally illegal salary as a chambermaid in the seedy Baltic Hotel.
From here, the film's story takes off.Okwe should know what a human heart looks like because, we learn, he was a doctor in Nigeria, a family man who was forced by circumstances to leave his daughter behind.
(It is from a line of this offer's dialogue that the film takes its title.) In what is surely the film's most thrilling and surprising moment, Frears gives the viewer a splendid opportunity to cheer for the long-oppressed underdog, now empowered.It is to the plight of these underdogs, these members of London's working class who are consigned to lives of quiet and anonymous desperation, that the film unglamorously dedicates its purpose, for they are the ones who comprise the city's human infrastructure, the unseen force that keeps its wheels turning.
Here he tells the almost uplifting tale of Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Nigerian doctor who has become an illegal immigrant to Britain, and his chaste relationship with a young virginal Turkish woman Senay (Audrey Tautou) whose aim is to join her sister in New York, where the policemen are on white horses and good jobs can be had for the asking .
At the start of the film Okwe and Senjay are both working in the Baltic, an upmarket London hotel, he as the night desk clerk and she as a maid, sharing (by rotation) a tiny flat and doing their best to avoid the immigration police.
What he has done is to present their plight in a compassionate manner and evoked the atmosphere of fear and despair that surrounds them.A film like this requires good acting and Chiwetel Ejiofor, a Londoner with Nigerian parents, is excellent as Owke the doctor turned night clerk.
Isn't this new Home to some extent just a milder version of the same corrupted world and the bleak poor quality of life they believe to have left behind?Stephan Frears takes a straight, almost dead-pan approach to the styling of the film making it more like a docu-drama, a journalistic approach which seems totally appropriate to the story and its characters.
The acting is also excellent, with sweet "Amelie" Tatou leaving Montmatre well behind and Chiwetel Ejiofor giving a subtle but effective performance although the character is sometimes a bit too good to be true.What I did like best is that there is no final moralising with the exception of the fact that Sergi Lopez, the organ selling ring leader, get what he deserves.
It's worthy and weighty in terms of subject matter, but as a film it lacks invention.Concentrating on the seedy London underworld of illegal immigrants and late night workers, the film tells the story of Night Hotel manager Okwe.
They are surrounded however by various overacting characters, which undermine the film.A worthy subject matter, and some nice twists are undone by unimaginative directing from the experienced Stephen Frear's, whose previous films such as 'My Beautiful laundrette' promised more than the director has been able to deliver.Worth watching for the captivating Tautou and promising Ejiofor, but might be worth waiting for a video release, especially with all the blockbusters flying about at this time of year..
Stephen Frears' latest film is a contemporary and highly original urban story, a thriller with a political edge set amongst London's largely invisible community of illegal immigrants.
The prostitute character was a bit too 'tart with a heart'.80% of the film deals with the horrible, daily grind of being an 'illegal' immigrant in London - and this is very good.
Stephen Frears is the director of High fidelity,one of the greatest comedies of last years.Dirty pretty things is another movie directed by Frears and it's excellent too.Dirty pretty things works a lot on different levels:as a drama about the immigrants is simply great and it tells perfectly how do the immigrants adapt on their new land.The film works greatly as a thriller,too:I wanted to solve the mystery behind the hotel like the main character wanted.The cinematography is great,too.Dirty pretty things is an excellent drama/thriller film that I totally recommend.Rating:9.
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.
Also embarrassing to watch at times how incredibly moralistic they made him look, which gives the entire movie as a whole also a moralistic overtone, that is somewhat in contrast perhaps with the serious and realistic approach of the movie.The movie is only still refreshing to watch because it tells the story from the point of view of (illegal) immigrant living in London.
Most of these films, however, deal with those who migrated legally to Britain in the mid twentieth century and their descendants who, while retaining a distinct cultural identity of their own, have integrated into British society."Dirty Pretty Things" ventures into much less familiar territory, the world of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.
Audrey Tautou, however, was something of a disappointment after her excellent role in "Amelie"; like a number of other actors, she seems to find it easier to act in her own language than in a foreign one.What gives this film its power is this combination of documentary-style social realism with a gripping thriller plot.
"Dirty Pretty Things", however, is the best of his films that I have seen, a fine example of the honourable British tradition of casting light on those aspects of our society that Middle England might prefer to keep in the dark.
This is not to say that it is a bad plot but just that the thriller part of it doesn't always convince and at times feels a little contrived; however it does provide a good enough frame for what I found more interesting, which was the look into an unseen world of illegal immigrants, exploited and just trying to survive.
We are the ones that drive your cars, that clean your rooms, that suck your c*cks" and by doing so he sums up what this film does best  shows us in a convincing way this unseen world.It works well with the main plot because it is woven into every scene and indeed it is key to the story that the characters are unable to turn to any authority for help and are at the mercy of whatever anyone wants to pay them or take from them.
In this regard then Knight's script is strong and is well delivered by Frears who has a great eye for the hidden places while his cinematography presents a washed out London that feels dark even in the middle of the day  a London which lacks glamour and hope but just exists  much like the characters we see here.The cast do very well also.
If you suspend disbelief, it's a much better movie.Now as for the film, I feel that the real stand out star is Chiwetel Ejiofor as "Okwe".
The tough life of London's illegal immigrants is examined sympathetically in Stephen Frears' film, 'Dirty Pretty Things'.
A little slow start but really a cool and surely a view on life which this movie provide.I'am quite picky but this Pretty dirty things is good for sure!all the character in this movie are really good actors,specially the 3 main ones (with that girl from Amelie) which seem to be in many others good movie from France .Very natural setting make this enjoyable to watch and easy to understand as the story go deeper to the point...It's too bad we don't hear much about this movie when it came out but i'am glad i had the chance to see it.I think if you give it a chance you should not be disappointed at all,unless of course u expecting big fight and explosion this movie is in it's own special class,the reality one at most which I like.Enjoy.
"Dirty Pretty Things" tells an obviously fictional tale about an illegal immigrant in the UK; an African doctor (Ejiofor) who discovers a human organ black market operation in the hotel where he works as a night clerk, is blackmailed because of his illegal status, falls in love with a Turkish illegal immigrant (Tautou) who also suffers coercion at the hands of her evil employer, and sets about to right all those wrongs in one fell swoop.
But for all that this "dirty" film lacks, it makes up for with a beautifully crafted story and some of the most compelling characters seen on screen in years.Please, don't go waste your money on My Boss's Daughter or whatever other end-of-summer trash Hollywood managed to muster a good commercial for.
A story about immigration in Europe; about two human beings who struggle for a decent life in a First World that won't let them achieve it by regular means,thus leaving them alone in the hands of evil and corruption.It portraits the diverse characters with accuracy and harshness, thanks to efficient acting by Audrey Tatou and Sergi Lopez, in his best role after "Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien".
"Dirty Pretty Things" is a fascinating character study that delves into the intertwining lives of illegal immigrants working in a seedy London hotel who get caught up in an organ harvesting ring.
I Loved this film!, and the originality of it, the acting was superb, and the storyline, I liked the fact that Stephen Frears uses no typical British characters, and that everyone in the film is foreign, it shows a side of London, we never ever hear about, and a controversial subject that not many filmmakers would want to tackle.
I Loved this film!, and the originality of it, the acting was superb, and the storyline, I liked the fact that Stephen Frears uses no typical British characters, and that everyone in the film is foreign, it shows a side of London, we never ever hear about, and a controversial subject that not many filmmakers would want to tackle.
"Dirty Pretty Things" is sometimes sold also as a thriller film, actually it is an impressive drama, well written and directed.The story is about an irregular immigrant doctor from Nigeria who lives in London and leads a double life: during the day he is a driver while by night he works in the front desk of a hotel, managed by a slimy Spanish man.One night he discovers a human heart stuck in the toilet in a room of the hotel.
The film shows what poor people face to live a respectable life, especially in a big city like London, how they agree to a compromise to be happy.Without any doubt, Chiwetel Ejiofor is a great actor, his gaze is pained and plays extraordinarily his role, perfectly identified in the character's suffering.
In the cast there are also Audrey Tautou as a Turkish immigrant who illegally works in the hotel as maid and Sophie Okonedo who is a prostitute..
Nigerian illegal immigrant Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) drives a cab in London during the day and works the hotel reception at night.
And Senay, a Turkish-Muslim immigrant played by Amelie's Audrey Tautou, who's there only to raise enough money to go to New York in search of a new life.Okwe works at the Baltic Hotel as the front receptionist taking care of the residents.