Dirty Pretty Things

Stephen Frears, UK, 2002, 107 minutes

Dark, intriguing and a plot with more twists than a bag of pasta, Stephen Frears’ latest in his long directing career takes us to London’s informal economy and the sinister goings on therein. In the tradition of My Beautiful Laundrette and The Grifters, Dirty Pretty Things is a thriller with a continual and ever-present feeling of foreboding, making you always wonder what’s around the next corner.

Set in an upmarket London hotel, Dirty Pretty Things proves there is often more to people and things than meets the eye. The Turkish chambermaid is not here to improve her English and the Nigerian night porter does is not in his job because he left school at 16. They are the surface of something much more sinister and the reality of the hotel’s concealed activity becomes gradually clearer as we learn the maid is in fact an asylum seeker and the porter is really a highly qualified doctor.

A virtuoso directional performance from Frears and deeply moving performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou who will appear in a completely different light to anyone who has seen Amelie. The things her character has to do as an asylum seeker on the run is decidedly not cute or touching. The bleakness of the issues covered in the film is dissolved cleverly into very mundane settings; making it appear shockingly real. In Dirty Pretty Things, the darker side of human nature produces a brilliant vehicle for adventure, revenge and suspense. It is an example of British cinema that deserves better recognition outside of art house theatres.

Review by Stuart Kelly
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2003