Dirty Pretty Things

Name: Dirty Pretty Things
Director: Stephen Frears
Released: 2002

Stephen Frears

2002

Synopsis

An undocumented immigrant finds a human heart in one of the toilets of the west London hotel where he works with other undocumented immigrants.

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Recommendations

100
Salon
The grandest and most vigorous movie he's (Frears) made in at least a decade. Like Okwe himself, it rises above its limitations, and it's just a little bit bigger than the landscape around it.
100
Los Angeles Times
This is a film that insinuates itself deeply into our awareness. It's that rare pulp story with something on its mind, an unnerving, socially conscious thriller with a killer sense of narrative drive.
100
San Francisco Chronicle
All told, the best ensemble cast I've seen this year.
90
Washington Post
Once again, Frears -- who has enjoyed a glorious run of diverse, good-quality movies, from "My Beautiful Laundrette" to "High Fidelity" -- has crafted a unique gem.
88
ReelViews
It's a dark and revealing movie, and, while the ending may not be upbeat enough for those expecting mainstream fare, it offers a measure of hope and a catharsis.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
The strength of the thriller genre is that it provides stories with built-in energy and structure. The weakness is that thrillers often seem to follow foreseeable formulas. Frears and his writer, Steve Knight, use the power of the thriller and avoid the weaknesses in giving us, really, two movies for the price of one.
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The poetic justice strains the verisimilitude of a film otherwise grounded in a tough reality, but there is a guilty satisfaction to it all.
80
Wall Street Journal
The thriller aspect of this work, happily, doesn't overshadow its real beauty -- its stark portrayal of the nightmare despair of aliens, hunted, on edge, prepared to risk all for a new start.

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