My Beautiful Laundrette [1985] [Criterion] (BLU)
Stephen Frears
Synopsis
Stephen Frears was at the forefront of the British cinematic revival of the mid-1980s, and the delightfully transgressive My Beautiful Laundrette is his greatest triumph of the period. Working from a richly layered script by Hanif Kureishi, who was soon to be an internationally renowned writer, Frears tells an uncommon love story that takes place between a young South London Pakistani man (Gordon Warnecke), who decides to open an upscale laundromat to make his family proud, and his childhood friend, a skinhead (Daniel Day-Lewis, in a breakthrough role) who volunteers to help make his dream a reality. This culture-clash comedy is also a subversive work of social realism that dares to address racism, homophobia, and sociopolitical marginalization in Margaret Thatcher’s England.
Special Features:
- Restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Oliver Stapleton, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New conversation between director Stephen Frears and producer Colin MacCabe
- New interviews with writer Hanif Kureishi, producers Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe, and Stapleton
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Graham Fuller
Product Details
- Format: Color, Widescreen
- Language: English
- Subtitles: English
- Aspect Ratio: 1:66:1
- Number of Discs: 1
- Rating: R
- Label: Criterion Collection
- Release Date: 07/21/2015
- Run Time: 98 minutes
- Catalogue #: 767
- Region: A