Some films you should never re-visit and this is one of them. The 1980's was a troubled time, overshadowed by AIDS and many social problems. I have read reviews here mentioning magic realism ( a trend of troubled times as a form of intellectual escapism ) and this film attempted to make us escape while dealing with both racism and homosexuality. A few worthy heterosexuals played around with homosexuality and through my critical eyes failed. Omar and Johnny are opening a laundrette and in the climate of the times this seemed a daring thing to do, marrying ( no pun intended ) two gay lovers that epitomised for the times both racism and homophobia. Straights were grateful, and a lot of gay people were grateful as well that such a subject could be moving and brave. Sadly I could not quite believe in it then and especially from an independent Gay/Queer film perspective in recent decades I find it tiresome. Daniel Day-Lewis attempted authenticity but seemed unfit for the character he was supposed to portray. Both ' Another Country ' and ' Beautiful Thing ' are also Gay themed films which I did not quite believe in and it took the 21st C. to shake up things and in the main from France. ' God's Own Country ' is the one film from the UK that I thought 100% succeeded. It is good to re-visit the past sometimes and to wonder why we were as Gay people so ready to accept the crumbs from heterosexual tables. But then maybe they got us through to less homophobic times.
Review of My Beautiful Laundrette
