LogFAQs > #946616010

36. My Beautiful Laundrette
Total score: 291

JONA: 22
Metal: 23
Johnbobb: 32
Karo: 32
Inviso: 33
KBM: 34
Snake: 37
Charon: 38
Gen: 40

JONA
Dang British people and their different words for things. Laundrette sounds like if my used clothes
became a waifu. I liked the drama of the Ali Clan and the street gang and the relationship between Omar
and Johnny was also nice. The difference in backgrounds of the two lovers helped make the movie stand
out.

Metal
Not necessarily all its cracked up to be, I found the movie that established Stephen Frears career quite a confusingly pitched and questionably edited affair in the early get-go, and its plot subtleties stayed quite largely elusive to me the whole way through. Given all that, I thought its back half in particular was surprisingly effective as an unnerving drama in the social realist British tradition of the time. It also helped that Omar, the piercingly ambitious Pakistani who wishes to live a self-directed life, and who is also gay, was a distinctly magnetic protagonist throughout on the back of Gordon Warnette's performance. Fun fact with no relevance to anything that nonetheless stuck out to me in the credits: Hans Zimmer - yes, that Hans Zimmer - was a music producer here.

Johnbobb
Why I Chose It
The importance of this movie to the history of LGBT film in undeniable, featuring an on-screen interracial gay couple as early as the mid-80s, delving as much into the class and racial struggles between the English and Pakistani communities as it does the struggles of the LGBT community.

What I Thought
This is one of the bigger disappointments on the list, partially because I'd heard good things about it over the years and partially because I've always loved Daniel Day-Lewis as an actor. He was fine, but this certainly wasn't the height of his skill by any stretch. I also watched this film last, and after watching 40 LGBT movies, this just wasn't really able to compare, lacking the emotional or dramatic impact of many others.

Karo
So this immigrant with a passion for laundromats ends up with the pakistani mob or something and there as a lot of
dick waving that miraculously ends without anyone having their throat cut.
To its credit it does have an actual story even if it isnt super interesting and I could actually watch it all the way
through without falling asleep so I guess that is something.
Score: 43/100

Inviso
I just dont know what to say about this one. Its taken me two days to get off my ass and
actually write about it. It feels like there was a good story in this movie, but it got bogged down
because there were SEVERAL good stories, and none of them were really given proper time to
build and play out in focus. The central story, from what I can tell, is that of growing up and
taking responsibility over time. The intro gives us the primary white, male character of the
movie, hoofing it out of an apartment when the landlord comes to evict his crew. By the end of
the movie, hes accepted a job at least and become a bit more respectable, even if it all seems to
have been for naught. Meanwhile, the Indian (Pakistani? I cant really tell if Paki was meant
to be a slur against South Asians, or a genuine description of his origins) lead is trying to become
a businessman and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. He inherits and fixes
up the titular launderette, but things go awry.

KBM
This is such a weird movie. Honestly, for the first 40 minutes or so, I could barely
even follow what was happening. The story is told in such an awkward, disjointed
fashion that I felt like I was somehow missing scenes it was simultaneously like
sitting through endless exposition, but not getting anything explained. Once the titular
laundrette finally opens, however, things do get a little more focused, if no less
strange. I found Gordon Warnecke's performance in the lead role a bit awkward and
amateurish for the most part, but he definitely steps it up in his scenes with Daniel
Day Lewis, with whom he has some great chemistry. I also liked Saeed Jaffrey as
Omar's hyper-capitalist uncle; definitely an actor with some tangible on-screen
charisma. So, yeah, to a certain extent, I appreciate this movie's quirky originality, but
I just could never quite get a handle on what it was trying to say with it all. I
understand there are plans to adapt it into a TV miniseries starring Kumail Nanjiani,
and I think that's a really interesting idea and might help to expand on the good, but
underdeveloped, ideas here.

Snake
A mostly meh, slow-paced film salvaged by Daniel Day Lewis and for being super ahead of its time, not only showing an on screen kiss between two men but having it be with a Pakistani character is even more incredible! I could see this riling some feathers back in the day. Otherwise, there's some generic punks & an uncompelling story that adds up to a whole lot of been there done that blahness.

Charon
Part of me wants to chalk up my dislike of this film to some type of cultural disconnect, but really even if I take that into account I find this movie to be objectively flawed. A big issue I have is the way the film continuously introduces new characters and new subplots, and continues to do so even near the end of the film, and leaves a lot of it completely unresolved. Storytelling like this makes it hard to really connect or care about any of the characters involved because you never really get to know many of them. The ones you do get to know, the main two or three characters, don't really have a lot in the way of charm. Omar is not a very likable protagonist and I never really get a good read on the type of person he is. They do very little with Johnny's past and just sort of expect you to put the pieces together yourself. His "former" friends go from seemingly help repair the laundrette to ruining it on purpose; it's really obtuse to me. But really, it's the cast of characters that bewilders me. Who cares about the girl? Who cares about what affair is happening with minor characters? They really needed to trim a lot of this stuff down because it felt very mini-series or soap opera in that way. Unpleasant.

Gen
Honestly I could've given the "honor" of my last place spot to any of my bottom five for different reasons. They were movies that made me feel angry or bored, and then there were movies that made me feel like I had completely wasted my life watching them. My Beautiful Laundrette somehow made me feel it all. I suppose I should give a film credit for eliciting some sort of emotion from me, but it does it through all the wrong ways: mainly by introducing a bunch of plot points and resolving exactly none of them. Only one other movie on this list manages that same feat to a greater degree, and though I hope it will show up soon (if it hasn't already) I have to at least award that one a couple of boosted spots for style. This movie somehow lacks both style and substance, and for that I can't forgive it.

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Khal Kirby, warlord of the Super Star Khalasar
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