My Beautiful Laundrette

Name: My Beautiful Laundrette
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: April 4, 1986
Duration: 97 min
Rating: 75
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Derrick Branche, Dudley Thomas, Garry Cooper, Gordon Warnecke

1986

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Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews

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7.0	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Ratings

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My Beautiful Laundrette

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Movie Details & Credits

Prooptiki | Release Date: April 4, 1986 | R

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Derrick Branche, Dudley Thomas, Garry Cooper, Gordon Warnecke, Richard Graham, Roshan Seth, Saeed Jaffrey, Shirley Anne Field, Winston Graham

Summary: An ambitious Pakistani Briton and his white boyfriend strive for success and hope when they open a glamorous laundromat.

Director: Stephen Frears

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance

Rating: R

Runtime: 97 min

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Critic Reviews

100

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

Director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi have fashioned a wonderfully fresh examination of the political and racial climate of Margaret Thatcher's Britain. Read full review

Eric Henderson

My Beautiful Laundrette is still fresh and remains a model case for creating moving, liberating cinema from an oppressive environment. It’s every bit the landmark gay film it deserves to be. Read full review

Pauline Kael

It's an enormous pleasure to see a movie that's really about something, and that doesn't lay on any syrupy coating to make the subject go down easily.

Empire William Thomas

At times puzzling due to the diverse panorama of subject matter, the film nevertheless corners touchy issues more than it flinches them. Read full review

Dave Kehr

This is a uniquely plausible portrait of life in England, yet its appeal isn't limited to social realism—it also has a twist of buoyant fantasy and romance. Read full review

Mike D'Angelo

The movie has elements of a coming-of-age saga, a gay romance, a drug-smuggling thriller, and a redemption tale, but it works first and foremost as a portrait of a milieu that had previously been all but invisible onscreen, and that remains so to this day. Read full review

Sid Smith

The style and acting of Laundrette is triumphant, and its substance a true but altogether pedestrian cliche. Read full review

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User Reviews

NickTheCritick

Nov 22, 2022

The young Pakistani Omar convinces his uncle Nasser to entrust him with a laundromat that he would like to run together with Johnny, with whom he is in love. This is just the beginning of a long series of vicissitudes. A great film with great direction and above all with a great Daniel Day Lewis.

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DawdlingPoet

Nov 25, 2021

This is a good film of its time, depicting a bleak picture for Indian immigrants in London, trying to fit in, in the big city. Its obviously set in the 1980s, when it was very much Thatchers Britain. The dialogue is quite frank at times, with racial slurs made by a local group of layabouts.This is a good film of its time, depicting a bleak picture for Indian immigrants in London, trying to fit in, in the big city. Its obviously set in the 1980s, when it was very much Thatchers Britain. The dialogue is quite frank at times, with racial slurs made by a local group of layabouts. It was certainly interesting to see Daniel Day-Lewis in one of his earlier roles - I'm not sure I would have recognised him, if I hadn't read up about the cast beforehand. There's some good dialogue present in the script, one line that particularly comes to mind being when the launderettes manager, the father, responds to someone saying 'I am a businessman, not a professional Pakistani!'.

This is no big Hollywood type film at all - neither should it be but as a piece of social commentary its pretty effective. Yes I'd recommend it.… Expand

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