Dirty Pretty Things – 2002 | 107 mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

With Dirty Pretty Things, Stephen Frears returns to British shores, and to his grittier past (My Beautiful Laundrette) in this gripping tale set against the backdrop of contemporary multicultural London’s underbelly. The cast of relative unknowns, including French actress Audrey Tatou, all contribute outstanding performances. The script provided by Steve Knight, who also brought us ITV’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, isn’t social-realism but it remains pretty much on the right side of credible thriller.

Urban thriller set amongst London’s invisible underclass of immigrant workers. Illegal Nigerian immigrant, Okwe (Chewitil Ejiofor), works as a minicab driver during the day and the evenings as a night porter at a posh London hotel. Also working at the hotel is chambermaid Senay (Audrey Tautou), a vulnerable Turkish asylum seeker – all-living in fear of capture by immigration officers. When the conscientious Okwe stumbles across evidence of a macabre murder whilst unblocking a lavatory in one of the hotel rooms he teams up with Senay and Chinese tart-with-a-heart prostitute Juliette (Sophie Okenedo) to solve the crime. The hotel’s sinister head porter, the appropriately named Sneaky (Sergi Lopez), has reasons for ensuring Okwe’s discovery does not attract the attention of the police.