Educating Rita (1983)

Best movie of this year hands down!

I love this movie so much

Redundant and unnecessary.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Whilst this is entertaining and well acted by the two leads the question remains do we really need a new take on Pygmalion given that both the Lesley Howerd-Wendy Hiller film adaptation of the straight play and the Rex Harrison-Audrey Hepburn musical version My Fair Lady are both available on DVD. Willy Russell is, of course, something of a dab hand at reworking well established material as in his reworking of The Corsican Brothers as Blood Brothers, and if he can get away with it and still sleep nights good luck to him. As I said this is certainly entertaining and Russell - adapting his own stage play for the screen - has managed to 'open out' a one-set two-hander to include several other characters and locations in much the same way the one-character stage play (again set in Liverpool) Shirley Valentine was supplemented and 'opened out' for the screen. If plagiarism doesn't bother you chances are you'll enjoy this.

Dr. Bryant (Michael Caine) is a bored drunk literature college professor. Rita White (Julie Walters) is an uneducated hairdresser. She tries to take him as her tutor for the Open University but he rejects her. She refuses to accept and fixes his door instead. Frank's wife left him and his girlfriend Julia is cheating on him with Brian. Rita's simple husband Denny wants to have kids but she's secretly taking the pill.Julie Walters is a revelation and Michael Caine is actually doing good work rather than just cashing in another paycheque. The situations are a little broad. The characters are a little too archetypal. However the performances are terrific and they elevate the material.

Alcoholic professor tutors a working class woman who aspires to become educated. It's based on a play and it shows. Most of the film is devoted to conversations between Caine as the self-pitying professor and Walters as the uncultured but enthusiastic student. While some of the dialog is interesting, much of it is mundane and repetitive and the film quickly runs out of steam. Caine is fine, but the film belongs to Walters. Repeating her stage role, Walters is delightfully vivacious in her film debut. The only problem is that her accent is so thick that those who are not British may have to strain to understand what she is saying.

British comedy-cum-character study with 'something meaningful to say'. Screenwriter Willy Russell adapted his stage play about a flighty hairdresser (Julie Walters) getting more than just an education from boozy, burnt-out professor Michael Caine--she learns to appreciate and nurture her own intellect. The pace is easy-going, with our heroine getting brighter with every misty montage, yet the process of teaching--or actually learning something through dedicated study--is not dramatized...it isn't even attempted. Russell brings the focus back to the growing mutual admiration between professor and student, and the classroom is ultimately just a backdrop, a ploy to bring these colorful characters closer. Performances are professional and solid, but the cloying scheme of this picture is sentiment-driven. ** from ****