"Remember ... I don't exist."
These are the words spoken by a prostitute of unknown African ancestry, describing the condition of countless individuals in cities across the world. These people are of different nationalities, religions and complexions; they are young and old, and they live right among us. We might not see them or we might choose to ignore them, but they are there. As the film puts it, they are taking our dirty things and making them pretty. They are illegal immigrants, and in this tense thriller, director Stephen Frears takes us into their hidden world, a world of dirty secrets just beneath the surface of our own.
There is a sense of clandestine secrecy and anonymity that pervades "Dirty Pretty Things," bringing about a feeling of urgency and tension. The film takes place in London, but not the bustling London represented by Big Ben or Piccadilly Circus. Instead, the busy activity and trade depicted occurs in darker, unseen enclaves, in places just beneath the bright surfaces of the hotels and restaurants seen from the outside.
The focus of this movie is The Baltic Hotel. The movie's protagonist is Okwe (Chjwetel Ejiofor), a Nigerian immigrant who never sleeps. Working as a cabdriver by day and a hotel clerk by night, Okwe lives in a secret arrangement with a Turkish maid named Senay (Audrey Tautou). Having obtained asylum in London, Senay is secretly renting the room given to her and working for pay at the hotel, two things she is barred from doing by British authorities.
The film introduces all kinds of immigrant workers with varying levels of official or unofficial status, but each character in the movie possesses a further substance and depth than one would first imagine. No one is as they seem, and as the layers are slowly peeled away, several disturbing discoveries are made, beginning with a single shocking finding made by Okwe in Room 510 of the Baltic Hotel.
While the movie's pacing might seem too slow in the beginning, this actually allows the eerie sense of tension to build, progressing further and further toward the film's final revelation and grisly climax. It is this growing sense of uneasiness and eventual horror that proves to be one of the film's most effective devices.
The other big draw of "Dirty Pretty Things" is the performances, which prove once and for all that there are plenty of fantastic minority actors out there waiting for more substantive Hollywood roles. Chjwetel Ejiofor gives a subtle, masterful performance as Okwe, and his character never seems insincere in his interactions with Senay or anyone else. Audrey Tautou, in her first major English speaking role, tries valiantly to maintain something that kind of maybe resembles a Turkish accent, but it ends up coming across more like a mix of French-tinged Russian enunciation. In any case, those who loved her in "Amelie" will find that her character retains some of the same nervous twitchiness, although this is less a result of any natural quirkiness than the stress of day-to-day living and a dreamy, desperate desire to reach New York.
Rounding out the cast are supporting characters Guo Yi (the accomplished Benedict Wong), a Chinese morgue employee who is friends with Okwe, and sleazy Sergi Lopez as the downright sinister Senor Juan, the hotel manager.
By the end of the movie, each of these characters will have become embroiled in dark, disturbing affairs, coming face to face with their pasts. The film raises difficult moral questions about the conditions of immigrant lives, and the events of the movie carry particular significance because they are happening right now, everywhere, across America and the rest of the world.
As a thriller, "Dirty Pretty Things" succeeds masterfully in bringing out a sense of taut uneasy terror. As a drama, the film reaches across borders to highlight the clandestine lives of millions, proving that these people are all around us, and do, in fact, really exist.
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