Dirty Pretty Things is a very fast movie. There are no long, lingering shots of significant landmarks or inanimate objects; to tattoo your memory for when the end comes. Each character is introduced in transition, from one scene to the next; as if to stay too long, would reveal too much.
There is no time to waste, rapidly moving through the lives of immigrants working multiple jobs, in the hotels, taxi cabs, and sweat shops of London. A prostitute is a friend to a hotel desk clerk, who’s a friend to a cleaning lady; welcomed in and out by the door man.
Chiwetel Ejiofor and the Human Heart
The only thing that can slow down this momentum is a human heart. No, not in the metaphoric, love is the answer way; literally, a human heart.
One night while working the graveyard shift, as a hotel front desk clerk, Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is summoned to clean up a mess left by a client of his prostitute friend. When Okwe gets to the room, he’s puzzled by the fact that the room, while moderately disheveled, isn’t really the mess he had expected.
But, just before he’s about to leave, Okwe notices gurgling bubbles rising up from the toilet. Leaning in, the toilet bubbles and burps one last time, before a silky strand of blood slowly rises to the surface of the water. Reaching in, Okwe grabs the obstruction, falls back, and jerks free a human heart from the bloody water.
Chiwetel Ejiofor Seeks Answers to the Human Heart
Okwe is troubled and curious by his bizarre discovery, and seeks out an answer from his sleazy boss, the hotel manager; but, is quickly dissuaded from pursuing the matter any further, after the hotel manager threatens to turn him in to immigration officers.
After a close shave with the immigration officers, at the apartment he secretly shares with a Turkish immigrant named Senay (Audrey Tautou), a housekeeper from the hotel; the human heart leads Okwe to visit a friend who happens to be a forensic pathologist; where it will be revealed that in Okwe’s previous life, in his native Nigeria, he too was a doctor.
We are the people you do not see.
Dirty Pretty Things is an immigrant tale like no other; not simply a retelling of the immigrant struggle through an alternative genre, but an intimate and brutal character study about class and poverty.
The love story that develops between Okwe and Senay, builds incrementally; culminating in a breathless sequence, where each character will have to sacrifice, so the other may continue on.
For it will be revealed, the origin of the human heart, lies in a nasty business, involving immigrants selling their organs for passports; which will ensnare the good doctor, Okwe, and his desperate friend Senay, into a seemingly inescapable trap.
Written with great empathy and insight by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises), Dirty Pretty Things ends in an unexpectedly bittersweet way; after a furiously fulfilling, and perfectly filmed climactic action sequence, delivered by director Stephen Frears (The Hit).
There is a scene at the end of the film that perfectly captures the essence of the story; when Okwe, must deliver an organ to one of the nefarious doctors; the doctor sees Okwe standing with Senay on one arm and his prostitute friend on the other, the crooked doctor asks, How come I've never seen you people before?; Okwe answers, Because we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms. And s**k your #@!%s.
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