‘The hotel business is about strangers. And strangers will always surprise you…’
Steven Knight is probably best known nowadays as the creator of the monster hit Peaky Blinders, but his best work has actually come on the silver screen. His Tom Hardy vehicle (pun intended), Locke, is one of the most underrated films of the last decade, and Dirty Pretty Things, his collaboration with director Stephen Frears, is similarly underrated.
Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a doctor in his home country but after he is forced to flee to London he works as a cab driver during the day and on the front desk of a hotel at night. As an undocumented migrant, Okwe lives with his Turkish friend and possible love interest Senay (Audrey Tautou). When cleaning one of the rooms in the hotel, Okwe finds a human heart blocking the toilet and uncovers a nefarious organ harvesting scheme being carried out by crooked hotel manager Juan (Sergi López).
What makes Dirty Pretty Things so effective is that while it contains plenty of social commentary, it never comes at the expense of the action, nor does it ever feel too didactic or contrived. As is typical of Knight’s work, the plotting is fast-paced and suspenseful, but his characters feel less cartoonish here than in his later work (partly because Ejiofor and Tautou are so convincing in the lead roles). It also helps that the supporting cast boasts Sophie Okonedo and Benedict Wong who convince as a sex worker and a hospital porter respectively.
Director Stephen Frears has become best known for his repeated biopics of the royal family, but his early films were replete with social commentary and so his gritty but slick direction here is the perfect match to Knight’s smart script. Considering how many people involved in this project have gone on to become huge stars, it’s perhaps surprising that Dirty Pretty Things isn’t more well-known. It deserves a wider audience.