SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID
A film review by K. Prasad
Copyright 1987 K. Prasad
[Cross-posted from soc.culture.indian]
SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID is the new movie from Hanif Kaureshi, the maker of MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE. Like that movie, it is a social commentary on present-day London seen through the eyes of Pakistani immigrants.
Sammy (played by Ayub Khan Din) and Rosie (played by Claire Bloom) are a somewhat unhappily married couple who are nevertheless very much in love with each other. They are visited by Arif (Sashi Kapoor, now about 60 pounds overweight), who has been powerful in the Pakistani government, but is now running away from enemies. The movie, without giving the story away, is about the time he spends in London.
The movie is powerful, fast-moving, and disturbing. The somewhat dramatised pictures of adultery, poverty, and social upheaval leave the viewer constantly off-balance. The contrasts between Arif's self-righteousness and Rosie's ultra-liberalism, and their interplay with Sammy's philandering indifference to politics are interesting. The movie does not stereotype, though. The other characters are just as interesting -- the sophisticated slum-dweller Danny, the pair of lesbian women, one presumably Pakistani and the other black, and Alice, the proper Englishwoman who has waited for Arif for several decades.
The movie's title is controversial and misleading. It is far more serious than it sounds, and in fact, at several points, I thought the audience chuckled unnecessarily due to false expectations of a somewhat more humorous screenplay. It is much more expensively produced than MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE and I thought somewhat less effective, perhaps because it attempted more. It is less a picture of the life of Pakistani immigrants in London than of the English underclass. It is perhaps too gimmicky and too full of action -- I wished I had more time to think about what the movie was saying during the movie. However, Kaureshi has succeeded in making the viewpoint of the Indian subcontinent hip and interesting and must surely be counted as belonging to an important genre of 80's film makers.