Return of the Naive

No, SAMMY and Rosie Get Laid is not a pornographic film. It is, as the title suggests, a provocative film. It is also another triumph from Hanif Kureishi and Stephen Frears, the team that made My Beautiful Laundrette.

Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

Written by Hanif Kureishi

Directed by Stephen Frears

At the USA Harvard Square

Like Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie is a unlikely comedy set in an early '80s London of racial tension and random sexuality. Sammy (Ayub Khan Din) and Rosie (Frances Barber) live in a neighborhood that is the site of race riots and police brutality. They find no contradiction in basing their marriage on both "freedom and commitment." They do "get laid," but not together.

Despite the dangers of the neighborhood and the lack of affection between them, Sammy and Rosie live pleasant, lower middle-class lives until Sammy's estranged father, Rafi (Shashi Kapoor) arrives. Once a high-ranking Indian politico, Rafi moves into Sammy and Rosie's apartment with the intention of giving them their substantial inheritance so that they can move into a real house and bless him with grandchildren.

But Rafi poses a problem for these well-intentioned liberals: how can they extend hospitality to and accept money from a man who, instrumental as he was in casting off British imperialism and building Indian democracy, may have used terror and torture to do so?

Rafi is also a problem because he is an anachronism. His conception of a domestic life for Sammy and Rosie is as out of date as his Machiavellian politics. He does not understand Sammy and Rosie's open marriage anymore than he understands their openly homosexual friends. Sex is inherently political in Sammy and Rosie's circle, and Rafi longs for a bygone world where "a kiss is just a kiss."

Nor does Rafi understand why they choose to live in a neighborhood torn by violence that itself makes no sense to him. The irony is that the violence stems from the "domestic colonialism" that Britain imposes on her Blacks, and that Rafi, despite his Indianness, is so fully assimilated into the old British mindset that he cannot see this.

SAMMY and Rosie would be a great comedy on the basis of its dialogue alone. Sammy, intent on throwing a fete for Rafi, says, "We can't let a little torture get in the way of a party." Rafi writes a postcard: "Streets on fire, wish you were here."

But Kureishi and Frears also toss in some surreal and offbeat moments that are especially unique and funny. Rosie demonstrates the socio-political implications of "snogging" by kissing three men while watching a TV program on the mating habits of lions. Street musicians perform the Temptation's "My Girl," including Motown-style choreography, while the camera cuts between scenes of various couples trysting. Sammy's mistress, Anna (Wendy Gazelle), a New York photographer, has a "w" tattooed on each buttock "so that when I bend over, it spells `wow.'"

The performances are all excellent. Din and Barber manage to be bored without being boring. They create a sweet, if abstracted love that still exists between Sammy and Rosie, despite their lukewarm marriage. "Sometimes I need a little passion," she explains. Without sarcasm, he smiles, "Don't let me stand in your way."

The best performances belong to Kapoor and Roland Gift. Kapoor endows Rafi with charm and dignity as well as ultimate sadness. Gift, who is also the lead singer of Fine Young Cannibals, almost steals the picture in his acting debut. He is both chivalrous and coquettish as street-dweller Danny ("My friends call me Victoria. My enemies call me jerk-off.").

Sammy and Rosie Get Laid is a disturbing movie that raises serious questions but offers no easy answers. It is also dry and witty, a worthy successor to Laundrette.