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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 407294" data-attributes="member: 23">My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fcriterion-production%2Ffilms%2F17f96f9413ad320378ac50cede624921%2FtLddExzFtpz7o13GYWsutsVfFGrWiq_large.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=6659bdc8d2ce37dec4cea2f10f46e5ec173841fdc7fe1103880c5162dc10bf71&ipo=images" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 637px" />As mentioned in the Top Ten Eighties films, this is a film I've been aware of for a long time but never got round to watching.With much of my viewing of late being made or set in mid Eighties Britain, it's not surprising there's a common running thread of Thatcher-fatigue running through them. Here we are smack in the middle of her devastatingly oppressive reign, and that oppression can be felt simply by running the camera and showing what is there. I don't believe the country ever looked as grey as it did during this decade. We've come a long way, but in a case of plus ça change... right wing thugs commit random acts of senseless violence driven by racism.A curiosity regarding billing was the discrepancy between the two main characters and the two lead actors. It makes sense when considering that the main characters are younger and played by virtual unknowns who are respectively appearing in their first lead role and their first feature film, whereas the older characters are played by relatively well-known and respected actors who have seniority. Saeed Jaffrey and Roshan Seth are both wonderful as the two older estranged brothers, and steal each scene in which they appear.Equally, though, the pretty younger actors playing the leading characters are revelations. Gordon Warnecke (whose very familiar face I could swear I remember well from EastEnders even though IMDb says he was only in six episodes) has great chemistry with both his screen father and uncle. There's something incredibly hopeful and optimistic about his expressive face, with a novel smile and an excited sparkle behind the eyes in any given situation. It doesn't matter if he's being passed a bucket with which to clean a car; watching his cousin strip off her top half and flirtatiously wave her boobs at him; listening to his drunken father chatter away; or enjoying the  energy coming from one of the hooligans. It feels as though every challenge is new and exciting and filled with possibilities. Then there's Daniel Day-Lewis. I believe this is the first DDL film I've watched (the only other place I would have seen him was a cough and spit in an episode of Shoestring). Pleasingly, I didn't even register his name in the credits so I spent the latter part of the film wondering who this actor was and thinking I need to find out more about him. He convinces completely as the former thug trying to start over, and a testament to his performance that Johnny is both extremely likeable and vulnerable while still fitting in effortlessly with his former friends. It's no surprise that this is the film that put him on the map, and it's a courageous first role for a number of reasons.The main context (I don't know if it would be classed as a genre) in which I've heard of this film is as a gay story but, while that element is there, it's about so much more than that. In fact, somewhere around the halfway mark, I started questioning if I was misremembering what I'd read because there was no overt mention or demonstration of homosexuality, but we'd seen Shirley Ann Field shagging the life out of Omar's uncle and the aforementioned prolonged mammary shots. It's perhaps a political message of its own - or at least a reflection of the time - that the most graphically sexual scenes here are heterosexual. Still, there is a sense of fun to the way affection is shown in the same sex relationship, and there are some charming and memorable moments that come from it, from the champagne sharing to the simple-but-hot neck public-but-covert neck-licking moment (which apparently the director came up with on the day, but didn't tell Gordon Warnecke about in order to elicit a genuine reaction). The politics of the time add subtext. It's important, for example, that the more affluent middle class family is Pakistani. The way that race informs the relationship between Omar and Johnny is also interesting. It's barely mentioned, but then bubbles to the surface in a kind of backlash aimed at the politics at the time when Omar talks down to Johnny and says words to the effect that he's proud of himself for having a white subordinate.The tone of the film also intrigues. I didn't care for the bubbly "washing machine music" that played over the opening credits (and recurred occasionally throughout). It was just too quirky for me. But I applaud that this can be pulled off in a film that also has outbursts of violence. There's a gritty realism to the film, but occasionally it's so real it seems almost unreal. Case in point, the flat directly next to the railway tracks which is very real, but here somehow feels whimsical and cosy (it put me in mind of Mrs Wilberforce's studio based street from 1955's The Ladykillers).This is a film with layers. So much so that I came away feeling that I'd missed something. Not because it fell flat, but because the writing is so nuanced and the layers so rich that I feel it's a film that requires several watches to really appreciate. And it probably needs discussion or some reading up to pick up some of the subtler things that may have gone over my head on this first outing.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?