75
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineDirector Stephen Frears and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi have fashioned a wonderfully fresh examination of the political and racial climate of Margaret Thatcher's Britain.
- 88Slant MagazineEric HendersonSlant MagazineEric HendersonMy Beautiful Laundrette is still fresh and remains a model case for creating moving, liberating cinema from an oppressive environment. It’s every bit the landmark gay film it deserves to be.
- 80EmpireWilliam ThomasEmpireWilliam ThomasAt times puzzling due to the diverse panorama of subject matter, the film nevertheless corners touchy issues more than it flinches them.
- 80The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyMy Beautiful Laundrette has the broad scope and the easy pace that one associates with our best theatrical films. It puts its own truth above the fear of possibly offending someone. Without showing off, it has courage as well as artistry. A fascinating, eccentric, very personal movie.
- 80Los Angeles TimesSheila BensonLos Angeles TimesSheila BensonNothing prepares us adequately for the cool of his screenwriter, 29-year-old Hanif Kureishi, nor for the audacity, complexity and depth of his themes.
- 80Time OutTime OutThe strength of the film is its vision - cutting, compassionate and sometimes hilarious - of what it means to be Asian, and British, in Thatcher's Britain.
- 80CineVueAdam LowesCineVueAdam LowesIt’s the committed turn from Day-Lewis and Hanif Kureishi’s socially-astute, Oscar-nominated screenplay that manages to compensate for the film’s technical shortcomings, alongside the (then) landmark casual representation of a gay relationship on screen.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertA movie like this lives or dies with its performances, and the actors in My Beautiful Laundrette are a fascinating group of unknowns.
- 75The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloThe A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloThe movie has elements of a coming-of-age saga, a gay romance, a drug-smuggling thriller, and a redemption tale, but it works first and foremost as a portrait of a milieu that had previously been all but invisible onscreen, and that remains so to this day.