Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Dirty Pretty Things (2002) - Good performances anchor Frears' flawed, overrated illegal immigrant drama

6/25/2020

Dirty Pretty Things (2002) - Good performances anchor Frears' flawed, overrated illegal immigrant drama

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With the piquant title font style and the disrobed star Audrey Tautou under a saucy, mysterious tagline, the poster for Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things hikes up expectations with sex

A hotel receptionist from Africa and a cleaning lady from Turkey, who are both illegal immigrants in London, share their adversities with each other for a while.

Dirty Pretty Things is written by Steven Knight (Allied (2016)) and directed by English master filmmaker Stephen Frears (Gumshoe (1971)).
It is an overly celebrated film with several weak points in its script and portrayal of reality: Sophie Okonedo's (Father & Son (2009, miniseries)) African prostitute character is eloquent and above-it-all; and our hotel 'heroes'' Chinese friend let both of them stay at the morgue where he lives, simply because he is sweet. Besides these dubious instances there's the fact the Chiwetel Ejiofor's (Savannah (2013)) Okwe character is a for me unacceptable hero, because he has fled from his own daughter in Nigeria, basically to live more comfortably in Europe.
What makes Dirty Pretty Things worthwhile anyway are the good performances from Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou (Happy End (2003)), and in supporting parts Zlatko Buric (Iqbal & den Hemmelige Opskrift (2015)) and Sergi López (The Boat Race (2009)).
The story is perplexing, and meant to be so, but it deflates when probed. It runs with a clichéd feeling of pity for economical migrants and refugees, but that view could also easily be subverted by the findings in Dirty Pretty Things: The film could also be taken to say something along the lines of; 'don't become an illegal immigrant in the first place, as they are only humiliated and degraded', (the message to the non-Westerner), and to the West; 'keep illegal immigrants out; they attract exploitative bastards and give rise to tragedies, sad destinies and a disbandment of the union of the established society'.

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2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

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Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) - Streep, Frears and Co. drop us a delightful present

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Philomena (2013) - Dench astounds in Frears' powerful true-story drama

Watch a scene from the film here

Cost: 10 mil. $
Box office: 13.9 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.39 times its cost)
[Dirty Pretty Things premiered 5 September (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 97 minutes. Shooting took place in the UK, including London. The film opened #36 to a 100k $ first weekend in 5 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #18 and in 493 theaters (different weeks), grossing 8.1 mil. $ (58.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 1.3 mil. $ (9.4 %) and the UK with 852k $ (6.1 %). The film was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, lost to Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs, won 4/7 British Independent Spirit award nominations, was nominated for 6 European Film awards, won 2 National Board of Review awards, an award in Venice and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to 2 notches higher than this one. Frears returned with The Deal (2003, TV movie), The Route V50 (2004, short) and theatrically with Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005). Tautou returned in Lost Seamen/Les Marins Perdus (2003). Dirty Pretty Things is certified fresh at 94 % with a 7.83/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Dirty Pretty Things?

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)