Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Stephen Frears
Cast
Shashi Kapoor,
Ayub Khan-Din,
Frances Barber,
Claire Bloom,
Lesley Manville,
Suzette Llewellyn
Genre
Drama,
Comedy
Sammy and Rosie are an unconventional middle-class London married couple. They live in the midst of inner-city chaos, surround themselves with intellectual street people, and sleep with everybody - except each other! Things become interesting when Sammy's father, Raffi, who is a former Indian government minister, comes to London for a visit. Sammy, Rosie, and Raffi try to find meaning through their lives and loves.
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
Austin Chronicle
The film's triumphantly perverse climax, in fact, is just that: a three-tiered split-screen of three couples shagging that resembles nothing so much as a national flag and is set to a rendition of "My Girl" sung by a black trio dressed as colonial soldiers. When it hits such giddily subversive high notes, Sammy and Rosie ... transcends provocation and bursts into ecstatic revelation.
Washington Post by Hal Hinson
Sammy and Rosie has a fierce, scrambled intelligence. In this story about a group of interlocking characters in a London neighborhood on the fringe, Kureishi and Frears rack up all of their views on sex, politics, colonialism, social injustice and rebellion like balls in a game of pool, then send them flying. And they seem less interested in pocketing shots than in watching the balls ricochet and collide.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
For people who love London and yet are thoughtful about it, this film is indispensable.
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
Mr. Frears and Mr. Kureishi have composed Sammy and Rosie as if they were building a giant bonfire in a mock celebration of the achievements of contemporary British society and, by extension, of the civilized world. They throw everything on -love, death, sex, politics, violence. A lot of stuff doesn't easily burn, but there's also plenty that does.
TV Guide Magazine
Matters become increasingly contrived as the film collapses in exhaustion from thematic overload. Still it's a fairly impressive achievement as a whole.
Variety
Frears levitates the film’s harsh realism with a fantastical counterpoint in touches like the ghost of a tortured labor leader who haunts Rafi from the outset, and a band of gypsy buskers who serenade the ongoing anarchy.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
The trouble is, since few characters are fully developed, it's hard to care who's doing what to whom and why.
Time Out
Tossed together from a Hanif Kureishi screenplay which labours so many right-on themes that none leave their mark
Empire by William Thomas
Not as closely controlled as My Beautiful Laundrette, but still a purposeful cross-cultural comedy that raises a few questions alongside the few laughs.
Los Angeles Times by Sheila Benson
Stunningly, ponderously bad.
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