| Dirty Pretty Things | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Stephen Frears |
| Written by | Steven Knight |
| Produced by | Tracey Seaward Robert Jones |
| Starring | Chiwetel Ejiofor Audrey Tautou Sergi López Sophie Okonedo Benedict Wong Zlatko Buric |
| Cinematography | Chris Menges |
| Edited by | Mick Audsley |
| Music by | Nathan Larson |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Miramax International[1] (throughBuena Vista International) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 97 minutes[2] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10 million[3][4] |
| Box office | $13.9 million[5] |
Dirty Pretty Things is a 2002 Britishsocial thriller film directed byStephen Frears and written bySteven Knight.[6][7] Following the lives of two immigrants in London, it was filmed in a documentary style and was produced byBBC Films andCelador Films, and distributed byBuena Vista International throughMiramax Films.
Okwe, a doctor in his home country (not initially named) who was forced to flee after being falsely accused of murdering his wife, lives in the United Kingdom as an undocumented immigrant. He drives acab in London during the day and works at the front desk of a hotel at night, which is staffed by other immigrants, both documented and undocumented. He is pressed to treat other poor immigrants, including fellow cab drivers withvenereal diseases, with scarce supplies provided by his friend Guo Yi, an employee at a hospitalmortuary.
Juliette, a sex worker who regularly conducts her business at the hotel, informs Okwe about a blocked toilet in one of the rooms, and he fishes out a humanheart. The manager of the hotel, Juan, runs an illegal operation at the hotel wherein immigrantsswap 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 aTurkishMuslim seeking asylum who also works at the hotel as a cleaner. Her immigration status allows her to stay in the UK, provided 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, as she is from a conservative culture where men and women who are not married do not spend the night together under the same roof. After Senay is visited byImmigration Services, who inspect the hotel after finding a book of matches in her flat, Okwe prevents the officials from intercepting her.
No longer able to work at the hotel, Senay begins working in asweatshop making clothes, which is also raided by officials looking for undocumented immigrants, who the manager gets rid of. The manager allows Senay to keep her job and not report her to the authorities in return for her performingoral sex on him; she initially complies before proceeding to bite him. Okwe finds her a place to stay at the hospital mortuary, while Senay asks him to accept Juan's proposition in his organ business to raise money to travel to America.
In desperation, Senay offers her kidney to Juan for a passport; Juan accepts the deal on condition he takes her virginity as well. Senay is later provided with amorning-after pill by Juliette. After learning of Senay's plan, Okwe agrees to 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 inNigeria, and Senay plans to start a new life in New York. Before they part atStansted Airport, they mouth the words "I love you" to each other, and she gives him her cousin's address in New York. Senay boards her plane, and Okwe calls his daughter long-distance to tell her he is finally coming home.
Dirty Pretty Things received positive reviews.Metacritic gives it a rating of 78/100 based on reviews from 35 critics.[8]Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 94% based on 143 reviews, and an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus describes the film as "An illuminating and nuanced film about the exploitation of illegal immigrants."[9] J. R. Jones of TheChicago Reader described it as an "impressive mix of entertainment and social comment, spinning a great mystery even as it confronts an ugly world".[10]The New Yorker called the film "a social thriller—a creepy, tightly knit suspense film that, on the fly, reveals more about the lives of immigrants in London than the most scrupulously earnest documentary,"[7] a sentiment echoed by the authors ofSociology: An Introductory Textbook and Reader of the film as being "not a documentary but a social thriller which blends aspects of the global urban legends about child kidnapping for organs and prostitutes drugging unsuspecting barflies who wake up in a hotel bathtub minus a kidney".[6]
Dirty Pretty Things was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won aBritish 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.
