Summary
Okwe goes to the hospital and prepares to operate on Senay, stealing surgical tools for the procedure. He goes to the hotel and creates a full operation room. When Sneaky visits, he hands over Senay and Okwe's new passports.
Outside, Guo Yi pulls his car up in front of the hotel and tells Ivan that Okwe has instructed him to wait there. In the room, Okwe tells Sneaky that he wants him to be his assistant and hands him a beer, saying that he knows Sneaky's hands are only steady when he has had a drink.
Sneaky laughs and takes a few big swigs of beer. Okwe asks when they come to collect the organ, suggesting that there is not much time between surgery and the period when a kidney begins deteriorating. "They come to the laundry bay," Sneaky says, and Okwe tells him to wash his hands. Sneaky wants to go into business with Okwe, and suddenly begins to pass out, evidently anesthetized by the beer.
Senay gets up and helps Okwe put Sneaky on the operating table. Downstairs, Juliette and Ivan go into the kitchen to prepare a bucket of ice. Upstairs, Okwe prepares to operate on Sneaky, telling Senay he has only operated on dead bodies before. He asks Senay if Sneaky said anything about him, and she tells him he did not, when there's a knock on the door. It's Juliette, with a box of ice.
Outside, Guo Yi tells Ivan that he is Pylades, "the boatman who ferried the souls to the land of the dead."
Okwe operates on Sneaky, which makes Juliette squeamish. When Okwe has extracted the kidney, they stitch Sneaky back up and bring the kidney downstairs. In the parking lot they hand the box to a man, who asks why he's never seen them before. Accepting the cash for the organ, Okwe says, "Because we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms, and suck your cocks." The man leaves, and Okwe hands Juliette some cash.
Okwe and Senay go to the car, and Okwe tells Ivan to call an ambulance in an hour. From the backseat, Senay calls to Juliette, and thanks her. They drive to the airport, and on the way, Senay calls her cousin, but loses service when they go through a tunnel.
Okwe tells Senay, "I did not kill my wife, but still it was my fault...I was a pathologist in Lagos...a government official was shot. I was told to destroy the evidence. When I refused, my house was firebombed. My wife was still inside. The police charged me with her murder." He tells her that his 7 year old daughter, Valerie, is still in Lagos. "I must go to her," he says, tearfully.
When they arrive at the airport, Okwe gives Guo Yi his book back and they leave. "Tell me about Lagos, do they have hotels that need maids?" Senay asks. He tells her that she must go to New York. She says goodbye to him and walks away.
Okwe follows Senay and holds her. "Always we must hide," she says crying, then gives him the name of the cafe where her cousin works in New York. Senay goes and boards her plane to New York, looking back at Okwe with tears in her eyes. They each mouth "I love you" to one another.
After she has left, Okwe goes to a payphone and calls his daughter, Valerie. "At last, I'm coming home," he says.
Analysis
Okwe agrees to Sneaky's original proposition, offering to operate on Senay in exchange for new passports and the promise of leaving London. Wanting to take matters into his own hands, Okwe saves Senay from being handed over to an amateur surgeon, and buys both his and her freedom. Sneaky, a true villain, is smug as he watches his employee bend to his will
In a twist, it turns out that Okwe has no intention of operating on Senay. He drugs Sneaky's drink and plans to operate on the boss himself instead. Senay helps him put Sneaky on the operating table, as they prepare to give Sneaky a dose of his own medicine. Of course, the difference is that Sneaky will not suffer such a horrible fate as the people who fell victim to shoddy surgeries; Okwe is a professional.
The film is as much a drama about the reality of living as an immigrant as it is a psychological thriller. After Okwe has given the man Sneaky's kidney, the man asks why he has never seen Okwe, Juliette, and Senay before, to which Okwe replies, "Because we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms, and suck your cocks." In this moment, he describes the invisibility and subjugation of the English immigrant, the fact that they do so much for the culture, but without ever getting any notice.
Just before the end, we learn more about Okwe's past. While Sneaky was wrong to suggest that Okwe killed his wife, Okwe confirms that he did have a part in her death, and that he has a daughter and a past waiting for him back in Lagos. While his deed was hardly as nefarious as Sneaky made it out to be, Okwe regretfully tells Senay that he cannot go to New York to start a life with her.
The film does not end in the traditional way that one expects a romance to end, yet again taking an unpredictable turn that represents the precarious status of immigrants. At the end, when it seems that perhaps Okwe and Senay will sacrifice their respective pasts to be with one another for love, they choose to go their separate ways. After admitting their love for one another, mouthing their devotion from afar at the airport, they each go to different flights. The film ends with Okwe tearfully calling his daughter, and telling her that he is returning to Nigeria. The film does not present the conclusive and satisfying Hollywood airport ending that audiences have come to expect, instead opting to end on a more open-ended and uncertain note.
