The scene is London, the characters almost all immigrants from Third World countries, some of them illegal, all of them trying to survive and avoid the dreaded immigration officials, cast as the bad guys.

I rented Dirty Pretty Things because it boasted the star of Emilie, my favorite movie of all time–even beating out Bagdad Cafe–Audrey Tautou. She was very good in this one as a young woman who dreams of going to New York but is being carefully watched by the bad immigration guys, who are hoping to catch her breaking the rules (like working, or harboring an illegal, both of which she is surreptiously doing). But even better is the main character, a Nigerian doctor reduced to clerking in a hotel, driving a taxi, rarely sleeping. He ties all the characters together and is essential to what gradually becomes the obvious central plot line: a market in human organs, traded by illegal immigrants for new identities, passports, and legal status.

I loved the European pacing of this movie which was nevertheless in English, the good-heartedness of it, and the deeply satisfying ending.