My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

Directed by

Stephen Frears

Genre

drama film, comedy drama, romantic comedy, LGBTQ-related film

Country

Australia, United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 37m

Rated

R

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 316 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In 1980s London, a young Pakistani-British man runs a launderette with his rebellious white childhood friend. Their lives and romance unfold amid racial tensions and economic struggle under Thatcher.

tendergrittysocially chargedlow-keywryvisceralpoignant

What happens

My Beautiful Laundrette is a 1985 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears and written by Hanif Kureishi. It was one of the first films released by Working Title Films. Set in London during the Thatcher years, the film reflects the fraught relationships between members of the Pakistani and English communities at that time. The story focuses on Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a British man of Pakistani origin, and his reunion and eventual romance with his childhood friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), now a street punk. The two become the caretakers and business managers of a launderette. The British Film Institute ranked My Beautiful Laundrette as the 50th-greatest British film of the 20th century. It was adapted into a stage play in 2002 and 2019. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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