My Beautiful Laundrette 1985

Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune: Director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi are better at depicting a new milieu than in making an important or innovative statement. Read more

Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times: It's Daniel Day Lewis, taut, intelligent, erotic, who is an emerging star. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: This new British picture raises enough issues for a half-dozen more conventional movies. And though this approach makes for a structure that's a little shaky, the film somehow holds together. Read more

Vincent Canby, New York Times: A fascinating, eccentric, very personal movie. Read more

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: This is a uniquely plausible portrait of life in England, yet its appeal isn't limited to social realism -- it also has a twist of buoyant fantasy and romance Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It is with some relief that we realize it isn't "about" anything; it's simply some weeks spent with some characters in a way that tells us more about some aspects of modern Britain than we've seen before. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Fast, bold, harsh and primitive like a prodigious student film with equal parts promise and threat. Read more

Time Out: The strength of the film is its vision -- cutting, compassionate and sometimes hilarious -- of what it means to be Asian, and British, in Thatcher's Britain. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: As always, director Stephen Frears does a superb job of work when given a good script, and this is a very good script. Read more