At the time, Kureishi was known for a few plays about the South Asian-British experience. He spent some time researching Pakistani and Indian-owned laundromats, putting it into "My Beautiful Laundrette." In 1985, British films with South Asian protagonists were rare. Graham Fuller's liner notes for Criterion's disc reel off a list of South Asian-British filmmakers currently working, but I didn't recognize half their names; it seems that much of this work still hasn't crossed the Atlantic. (Perhaps it's a mirror image of the difficulties Justin Simien's "Dear White People" faced finding distribution in the U.K.) As far as I know, Kureishi is heterosexual, but he uses gayness as a battering ram against the prejudices of Thatcher's England, as well as the narrow-mindedness of his own diaspora. In 1985, New Queer Cinema was still more than five years away. Temporally, "My Beautiful Laundrette" stands midway between the insults of William Friedkin's "Cruising" and Todd Haynes' layered AIDS allegory "Poison." It has few companions: perhaps Bill Sherwood's "Parting Glances" and some of Derek Jarman's work, although Jarman was generally more formally adventurous.

The film begins with racist punk Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), but quickly shifts focus to the family of Omar (Gordon Warnecke). Omar's father Hussein (Roshan Seth)  is a Pakistani immigrant. He watches the burgeoning far-right National Front movement, to which Johnny belongs, and the general conservative turn in British politics with dismay. Stuck in bed all day, where he likes to spend his time drinking, he wants Omar to take care of him. But Omar has absorbed some of the prevailing Thatcherite current and wants to succeed in business, especially under the tutelage of his more right-wing uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey.) He has ambitions to open a deluxe laundromat. While all this happens, Omar reconnects with Johnny, who quickly throws off  his neo-Nazi trappings and becomes his lover. Together, they manage to open their beautiful launderette.

Frears' background in TV is evident from his reliance on close-ups and two-shots, with the actors' faces and important objects close to the camera. "My Beautiful Laundrette" plays well on the small screen. However, it also transcends it. It uses color in particularly expressive ways. Frears was also a product of his times. The neon lighting and cinematography aren't a million miles away from Michael Mann's "Thief" and Tony Scott's "The Hunger," even if "My Beautiful Laundrette" never comes close to announcing itself as an exercise in style the way those films do. The settings are often bathed in blue light, and other primary colors pop up as well. On the day of the laundrette's opening, it's filled with sunny yellow lighting. This may be social realism, but it's anything but grimy.

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