Resilience In Dirty Pretty Things

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What do you get when you combine desperation, a search for home, and heartbreak? You find a surprising tale of love, loss, and resilience on the streets of London. In Dirty Pretty Things we find a Nigerian doctor working as a night porter, a Muslim Turkish woman working as a housekeeper, and a Hispanic hotel manager working as an organ broker. We also find a world of depict, a world where tough decisions with no right answers are made on a daily basis. At it’s heart, Dirty Pretty Things is a movie about immigrants, the desperate situations they face, and those who try to take advantage of them. But it is also a story of resilience, of love, and of trying to be good in a bad world. This movie portrays a strikingly diverse world, centered around the Baltic Hotel, where all of the main characters work. The one thread which seems to tie them all together is desperation and a desire to avoid entanglement with the law. Here we find Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a night porter and cab driver who was a doctor back in Nigeria. We also find Senay (Audrey Tautou), the Muslim housekeeper who is trying to hold on to her faith and dignity while making her way in London. We also find Juliette, a prostitute and Ivan, a doorman. Everyone has a story, and nobody is there by choice. One thing that becomes quickly apparent is the lack of power held by those …show more content…

In addition, it perpetuates the trope of the Muslim woman as acquiescent, as someone who needs rescue, who needs liberation. Fortunately, this movie did not stoop to the level of a dramatic uncovering of the head, representing the ultimate liberation of a former wearer of the hijab. But having Okwe, the more qualified, more composed man sweep in and try to make everything better does still perpetuate this stereotype. Still, as the movie rolled towards its conclusion, this unlikely duo of Okwe and Senay had my unquestioning

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