A rare instance of magic-realism that actually works in the cinema. The realism is a scrupulously observed portrait of 80s London, its people (entrepreneurs, drunks, racists, wide-boys), locales (dingy flats, delapidated laundrettes, murky car lots) and attitudes (strutting capitalism, dessicated liberalism, farcical extremism).
The magic comes from Frears' style, tweaking and heightening the real; from stylised scenes such as Omar's reuniting with Johnny; from some magical set-pieces, especially the opening of the laundrette, Omar and Johnny making love cut with Nasser and Rachel's waltz; from the clashing of an exotic, Oriental world in a determinedly materialist context.
Kureishi's script is occasionally heavy-handed, but sex is never far from his analyses of power and identity - Omar's crucial tirade against Johnny has a thrilling, Genet-esque frisson.
The magic comes from Frears' style, tweaking and heightening the real; from stylised scenes such as Omar's reuniting with Johnny; from some magical set-pieces, especially the opening of the laundrette, Omar and Johnny making love cut with Nasser and Rachel's waltz; from the clashing of an exotic, Oriental world in a determinedly materialist context.
Kureishi's script is occasionally heavy-handed, but sex is never far from his analyses of power and identity - Omar's crucial tirade against Johnny has a thrilling, Genet-esque frisson.