Day 165: Dirty Pretty Things

A look at the life of undocumented immigrants in England. Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofer) spends his days driving a taxi and his nights working at the front desk in a shady hotel. He finds a human heart in the toilet and tries to uncover what’s going on but it’s not safe for him or his friend, Senay (Audrey Tautou).

It turns out that the boss of the hotel takes kidneys (and other organs, presumably) from undocumented immigrants and gives them passports in return. What I don’t understand is how a heart ended up in the toilet. Unless I missed it, it was never explained. Were they taking the heart from someone and it ended up going wrong somehow and then they… put it down the toilet? I don’t get it. But that’s a small issue. The film as a whole is great. It was interesting and the story was well-paced. Oh, another issue would be the accents. If Okwe is meant to be from Nigeria and Senay is meant to be from Turkey, then why not use actors from those countries? Although I suppose it was to draw in fans of the actors used. Still, it would’ve been better if the characters were played by people actually from those countries.

7/10

Day 16: Mrs Henderson Presents

I decided that since my blogs were become more and more mopey I should perhaps watch something light, to brighten my mood. Which led me to this film but obviously I didn’t read what it was about and it turned out to not be as light as I had imagined. Mrs Henderson (Dame Judi Dench) loses her husband and decides that in order to avoid boredom she will buy a theatre. She does exactly that and with Vivian Van Damm’s (Bob Hoskins) help her theatre becomes a hit. In order to draw in the crowds she proposes that the women are naked through the shows. This obviously works and her shows are a constant sell-out. This happens with the Blitz occurring which adds quite a sombre note to it all.

As I said, I was looking for a light film that wouldn’t require much thought. The film opened on a funeral, however, so I clearly made a mistake. The funeral was closely followed by Judi Dench sobbing on a boat in the middle of a river. She is quite the actress, the minute her voice cracks at different points in the film I just burst into tears. And I don’t use the word often enough but she was perfectly feisty almost the entire way through.

I don’t have too much to say about the film itself. It did manage to stay quite light-hearted despite what was happening around them and that was great. I would say though, I was not quite ready to see Bob Hoskins’ penis. It just completely took me by surprise and I feel I should warn you, if you choose to watch it.

7/10