Dirty Pretty Things

Director Stephen Frears
UK 2002
107 minutes

Okwe, a kind-hearted Nigerian doctor, and Senay, a Turkish chambermaid, work at the same west London hotel run by Senor Sneaky and is the sort of place where dirty business like drug dealing and prostitution takes place. When Okwe finds a human heart in one of the toilets, he uncovers something far more sinister than just a common crime.

Dirty Pretty Things marks a return by Frears to the multi-cultural city as a subject, and is as refreshingly radical as My Beautiful Launderette was in its day. His style of film-making is gritty yet anything but drab, perfectly attuned to a desire to show London in an unfamiliar light. Most of all, what shines through the film is a profound understanding of people and an empathy for them, as the reality of their lives is revealed with wit and real warmth.

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