All kinds of fine movies out there this week, “Avatar” being one I can’t wait to see, but meanwhile among the oldies there are some pretty fine ones as well. “Dirty Pretty Things,” by BBC Films, is one that can take you to a different world, that of the stateless in Great Britain, specifically Okew (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Senay (Audrey Tautou).
He’s a night porter at a London hotel, she’s a maid there. He “rents” her sofa by day while she works but there’s nothing going on between them. At first.
That changes when the immigration narcs get on her case; she’s from Turkey without papers; he’s from Lagos without papers.
It all becomes bloody (as the Brits would say) when he finds a human heart plugging p a toilet (this is never resolved in the film) and he stumbles on a rings buying kidneys from live immigrants with the organs removed in hotel rooms. Seems to Okew was a medical student before he fled Lagos after his wife died. A sleezy Italian manager tries to blackmail Okwe into taking out Senay’s kidney but the tables get nicely turned and the good guys survive, maybe not a happy pair but with some hope.
Ejiofo is fine in his role of a long suffering but kind man; Tantou is charming as the maid who dances up a Turkish storm after giving a sweatshop operator the punishment he deserves. Film is rated R and runs one hour and 47 minutes. Not a blockbuster but a warm, sympathetic look at some lives that go largely unnoticed.