After a tip off from a prostitute who works the hotel, Okwe find a human heart blocking the toilet in one of the rooms. His boss isn’t interested and reminds him if he reports it to the police, he’ll be jailed for being an illigal immigrant. Even his friend Guo Yi (Benedict Wong,) who cleans the local morgue and lets Okwe steal drugs to minister to the STD-wracked immigrants who work at the cab office, is non-plussed. A human kidney is worth £10,000, or £3,000 and a European passport after all. Guo Yi’s considered selling his own organs to allow him to escape.

Finding herself falling for Okwe, Senay gets him a key cut for her flat, only to be raided by immigration. Okwe gets away, but immigration are on to Senay. As her case is under review, she’s not allowed to work or charge rent. They start watching the hotel, so she has to give that up and instead get work in a sweat shop, where she ends up servicing the boss under further threat of being reported to immigration. Okwe goes to the hotel to pick up her wages for her, to be confronted by boss Juan (Sergi Lopez) who has discovered he’s a doctor and wants him to get involved in the organ removal scam, in exchange for £3000 and passports for Okwe to return home and Senay to escape to her dream, New York.

The rest of the film deals with Okwe’s struggle to stay true to himself and protect Senay. This London is brutal and real. People are stripped of dignity (and body parts); subjected to rape in return for not been shopped to immigration; rejected for not fitting in, when they are given no chance to - instead, fitting in with each other, despite language barriers as they eke out an pitiful existence in virtual slavery.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is excellent - quiet, intelligent and restrained. His eyes speak volumes. Tatou’s face oozes vulnerability and she needs to do little else than look doe-eyed. I’ve looked forward to seeing Sergi Lopez (Juan) again since his film-stealing performance in ‘Harry, He’s Here to Help,’ and he is satisfyingly evil, in a way De Niro’s familiarity can’t seem to let him pull off any more. Also, a good cameo from the Benedict Wong as Okwe’s wise, blackly comic morgue pal.

London looks sleazily beautiful under a melancholy blue hue. It has a similar look, and angelic-hero-against-the-London-underground theme that made Neil Jordan’s ‘Mona Lisa’ so special back in the 80’s. The same 80’s London that director, Stephen Frears made his own back then with classics like ‘My Beautiful Launderette,’ ‘Prick Up Your Ears’ and ‘Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.’ It’s good to see him back after deserved Hollywood success with ‘High Fidelity,’ ‘Dangerous Liaisons,’ ‘The Grifters.’ It’s hard to believe that the still youthful looking (in my eyes) Frears directing debut begun as far back as 1968 with the TV drama ‘Tom Gratton’s War.’

On the whole, a vivid, warmly depressing dissection (s’cuse me) of the wretched existence those seeking asylum face in this country face and a real eye-opener as to the black market in human organs I still assumed only happened ‘some place else.’ Chiwetel Ejiofor is destined for greatness, Tatou has broken down any typecasting she may have suffered through her associations with a fairy tale Paris, by getting down to it in nightmarish London. I’ve no doubt the film will soon be recast and sanitised by Hollywood, if they aren’t already in production. All the more reason to see this raw, honest version as soon as you can.

Laura Hird is the Orange and Whitbread nominated author of the collection, ‘Nail and Other Stories’ and novel, ‘Born Free.’ Her short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies internationally. Her new collection of short stories is due to be published by Canongate Books in May 2005. She runs and edits her own loosely arts-related website on which she seeks out and publishes new poetry, short stories, reviews, interviews etc. She was born and lives in Edinburgh.

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© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.