Retrospective: Educating Rita (1983)

[David N. Butterworth]

EDUCATING RITA (1983)
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2017 David N. Butterworth

**1/2 (out of ****)

Time has not been kind to "Educating Rita." What was once--in 1983--a
charming and often hilarious tale about a British working-class
hairdresser's efforts to better herself by enrolling in an Open University
course now feels like a sudsy, operatic, and mostly obvious affair, with
little to get excited about bar a career-making performance from Julie
Walters, reprising the title role she performed on the London stage.
Michael Caine plays her whisky-impaired English professor, recent divorcee
Frank Bryant, whom Rita ("after Rita Mae Brown"; her given name is Susan)
picks to tutor her despite his futile attempts to dissuade her. Willy
Russell's stagy romantic comedy garnered Oscar nods for both performers, as
well as one for the playwright himself (back when it was called "Best
Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium") but the zingers
tend to be of the "What's that book you're reading, love?" "Somerset
Maugham, 'Of Human Bondage.'" "Oh, my husband's got loads of books like
that" type. Watchable for, if nothing else, Walters' ebullient turn (and
some rad 80s styles; Caine's alcoholic academic is reduced to embarrassing
reaction shots), "Educating Rita" is disappointingly droll some two dozen
years on. The only (suspect) knowledge you're likely to glean from Lewis
Gilbert's cute if unremarkable film is that assonance means getting the
rhyme wrong.

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David N. Butterworth
rec.arts.movies.reviews
butterwo...@gmail.com