Bafta Award Winning Film Educating Rita

Memorable two-hander based on Willy Russell's play, directed with a knowing touch by Lewis Gilbert (who collaborated again with Russell later that decade on Shirley Valentine). Julie Walters, who also played the role on stage, is the Liverpudlian hairdresser who signs up for an Open University English course; Michael Caine is her drunken college tutor. They set about changing each other over the period of the course - she wanting the education he thinks worthless; he relishing her lust for life. Beautifully acted and very entertaining.

Empire Magazine said that Educating Rita was “Charming, glittering characterisations that, though they don't run deep, nevertheless refresh.” Giving it 4 out of 5 stars. Whilst Rotten Tomatoes sums the film up to a tee by saying “a thoughtful thematic treatise on cultivation and learning and a charming character study of two lost souls from different worlds finding a common need in one another.”