Film: My Beautiful Launderette
Director: Stephen Frears
Country: UK
Released: September 1985
Runtime: 97 minutes
Genre: Drama
Studio: Working Title
Influenced: Sally Potter, Ayub Khan-Din, Gurinder Chadha, Asif Kapadia, Amma Asante
British novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi penned the screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette, a film that was originally shot for TV (Channel 4’s Film on Four) in six weeks on a low budget by Stephen Frears. The story revolves around Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a young British-Pakistani man living in south London, who is given an opportunity by his wealthy uncle, Nasser, to run a rundown laundrette. Omar's life takes an unexpected turn when he reunites with former lover, Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), a working-class white man who used to be a neo-Nazi. As they reconnect, their relationship deepens and they embark on an unlikely romantic affair, despite the disapproval of both their families and wider society. What Kureishi's screenplay highlights so well is the central dilemma at the heart of the immigrant experience – the desire to belong while preserving your identity.
My Beautiful Laundrette plays out this dilemma in its portrayal of the cultural conflict between the two brothers, Nasser and Papa, the latter an intellectual and socialist who believes fervently in education as a tool to combat racism and who is opposed to the greed inherent in Thatcherite economics, and the former a fervent supporter of Thatcher who abandons his immigrant roots in favour of money, success and a white mistress. The film also quickly became a landmark moment in queer cinema for its sensitive portrayal of a gay relationship, and for the groundbreaking way it explores the challenges that Omar and Johnny face due to their differing backgrounds. As Graham Fuller writes in his Criterion review, the film "threw a Molotov cocktail of urban chaos, polemical ire, spiky comedy and mixed-race queer sex into the so-called British Film Renaissance of 1984-86".
Omar, with the help of his street-smart friend Salim, transforms the failing laundrette into a thriving business, showcasing his entrepreneurial spirit and determination. But this immigrant success story is set against the backdrop of family conflict – both Omar and Johnny struggle with family pressures and social expectations, leading to conflicts that threaten to tear them apart – and racial tension within the South Asian community and British society at large. While Kureishi's screenplay is the main factor behind the film's realistic portrayal of these issues, Frears also deserves credit for eliciting superb performances from the actors, and I especially like the cinematography of the night scenes, the bright reds & blues and neon lights that give a sense of the dangers and excitements of a big city like London after dark.
My Beautiful Laundrette also fearlessly depicted a gay interracial romance during a time when such stories were relatively scarce in mainstream cinema. It's a film that skilfully blends elements of romance, drama and social commentary, making it completely unique and innovative at the time. The film was given a rapturous reception at the Edinburgh Film Festival in summer 1985 and also performed well both critically and commercially when it was released in the US a year later. As well as paving the way for more diverse storytelling in British cinema, perhaps My Beautiful Laundrette's greatest legacy was opening the door for other British Asian filmmakers such as Ayub Khan-Din (with 1999's East Is East), Gurinder Chadha (with 2002's Bend It Like Beckham) and Meera Syal.
"Whereas it took a cluster of kitchen sink dramas to enfranchise the northern working class in British cinema in the early 1960s, a single subversive movie did it for the Anglo-Asian community in the 1980s" – Graham Fuller
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