Dirty Pretty Things (film)

Dirty Pretty Things is a 2002 British thriller film directed by Stephen Frears and written by Steven Knight, a drama about two illegal immigrants in London. It was produced by BBC Films and Celador Films.

Plot

Okwe is an illegal Nigerian immigrant to the United Kingdom who drives a cab in London during the day and works at the front desk of a hotel at night. The hotel is staffed with many immigrants, both legal and illegal. Okwe keeps himself awake by chewing khat, a herbal stimulant. A doctor in his home country, he was forced to flee after being falsely accused of murdering his wife. In London, he is pressed into giving medical treatment to other poor immigrants, including fellow cab drivers with venereal diseases. Okwe's friend Guo Yi, an employee at a hospital mortuary, provides him with antibiotics under the table.

A prostitute known as Juliette, who plies her trade in the hotel, informs Okwe about a blocked toilet in one of the hotel rooms. He fishes out the blockage and finds a human heart. The manager of the hotel, Juan, runs an illegal operation at the hotel wherein immigrants swap kidneys for forged passports. After learning of Okwe's past as a doctor, Juan pressures him to join his operation as a surgeon, but Okwe refuses.

Senay is a Turkish Muslim who also works at the hotel, as a cleaner. She has a visa to stay in the UK providing she does not work; the hotel is a perfect cover because she is not named on its books. She allows Okwe to sleep on her sofa when she is not home, her morals forbidding her from being alone with a strange man at any time.

Senay is frightened after a visit from the Immigration service, and convinces Okwe to leave before the authorities find him in her home. The officials find a book of matches from the hotel and decide to inspect it before Senay arrives for her early morning shift. Okwe asks the doorman to intercept Senay; the officials don't catch her, but she can no longer work at the hotel. She begins working in a sweatshop making clothes, but the officials raid that site, too. The entire staff to flee to the roof while the manager gets rid of the Immigration agents. The manager will let Senay keep her job and promises not to report her to the authorities only if she will perform oral sex on him. After a couple of such sessions, she refuses to cooperate and bites him, then flees with an expensive coat and some dresses.

Okwe finds her a place to stay at the hospital mortuary, but Senay panics. She asks him to raise money for her to travel to America by selling the stolen clothes and acting as a surgeon in Juan's organ business. Okwe refuses.

In desperation, Senay agrees to exchange a kidney for a passport. As a "deal maker", Juan takes her virginity as well, and later Juliette provides her with the morning-after pill. After learning of Senay's plan, Okwe tells Juan that he will perform the operation to ensure her safety, but only if Juan provides them both with passports under different names. After Juan delivers the passports, Okwe and Senay drug him, surgically remove his kidney, and sell it to Juan's contact.

Okwe plans to use his new identity to return to his young daughter in Nigeria, and Senay plans to start a new life in New York City. Before they part at Stansted Airport, she gives him her cousin's address in New York. They mouth the words, "I love you", to each other. Senay boards her plane, and Okwe calls long-distance to his daughter to tell her he is coming home at last.

Cast

• Audrey Tautou as Senay Gelik
• Chiwetel Ejiofor as Okwe
• Sergi López as Sneaky (Juan)
• Sophie Okonedo as Juliette
• Benedict Wong as Guo Yi
• Damon Younger as Punter
• Paul Bhattacharjee as Mohammed
• Darrell D'Silva as Immigration officer
• Sotigui Kouyaté as Shinti
• Abi Gouhad as Shinti's son
• Zlatko Buric as Ivan

Reception

Critical response

Dirty Pretty Things received positive reviews. Metacritic gives it a rating of 78/100 based on reviews from 35 critics.^[5] Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 94% judging it "Certified Fresh", based on 138 reviews. The site's critical consensus describes the film as, "An illuminating and nuanced film about the exploitation of illegal immigrants." ^[6]

Accolades

Dirty Pretty Things was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best Independent British Film" in 2003. For his performance as Okwe, Chiwetel Ejiofor won the 2003 British Independent Film Award for best actor.

References

Further reading

• Stein, Rachel (2010). "Disposable Bodies: Biocolonialism in The Constant Gardener and Dirty Pretty Things". In Willoquet-Maricondi, Paula. Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film. Under the Sign of Nature. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0813930057. 
• Wolf, Clark (2009). "Commodification, Exploitation, and the Market for Transplant Organs: A Discussion of Dirty Pretty Things". In Shapshay, Sandra. Bioethics at the Movies. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 170–185. ISBN 0801890772. 

External links

• Official website
• Dirty Pretty Things at the Internet Movie Database
• Dirty Pretty Things at AllMovie
• Dirty Pretty Things at Box Office Mojo
• Dirty Pretty Things at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dirty Pretty Things at Metacritic