Description: Described by Stuart Hall as 'one of the most riveting and important films produced by a black writer in recent years', My Beautiful Laundrette was a significant production for its director Stephen Frears and its writer Hanif Kureshi. Omar, member of a Pakistani family 'getting ahead' in 1980s Thatcher's Britain is charged to make over a rundown launderette, and in the process falls in love with the brooding Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis in career-making form). Christine Geraghty interrogates My Beautiful Laundrette as a crossover film: between television and cinema, realism and fantasy, and as an independent film targeting a popular audience. She deftly shows how it has remained an important and watchable film in the 1990s and early 2000s and her exploration of the film itself is a remarkable, original and entertaining achievement.
Brief description: Christine Geraghty is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Glasgow and Honorary Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. She is the author of Now a Major Motion Picture (2008), My Beautiful Laundrette (2004) and British Cinema in the Fifties (2000).
Review Quotes: ""He is still almost incapable of creating a dull or hackneyed character. This is such a rarity for younger British male authors that it needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Add to that his fresh vision of empire's aftermath and his flair for pop culture, and it's plain to see why Colin MacCabe hails 'one of the great talents of the past 25 years.'"" --Observer