Educating Rita

What delights me most about this movie is that in early 2006 it finally came out on DVD. There is a minor glitch in the establishing scene at the beginning, but to see Rita once again in widescreen is almost like seeing it for the very first time.

Educating Rita is one of many re-tellings of Shaw's Pygmalion, itself based on a Greek myth, so the story is nothing new. Rita, as so many great British films, is based on a play, in this case by Willie Russell, who also collaborated with director Lewis Gilbert, who, in addition to directing several Bond features, also directed Michael Caine in his Oscar nominated title role in Alfie, on the delightful Shirley Valentine, cast in a similar vein. It would be easy to think of Rita as My Fair Lady without the Marne Nixon voice overs, but that would be, as a classmate of Rita's puts it, facile.

The combination of Michale Caine and Julie Walters is pure magic. Unlike Dudley Moore's lovable drunk, Caine's Frank Bryant is a drunk that is difficult to love, which makes him far more interesting. He wallows, not in self pity, which would be disgusting, but in the infinitely sadder depths of self acceptance and resignation to shortcomings. He is a failed drunken poet who has lost the capacity to feel his own life.

Enter Rita, a hairdresser who wants to learn literary criticism, but more importantly, learn a way out of a life that she feels all too well. From his jaundiced perspective, Frank fears that educating Rita would transform her into just another one of the lifeless women that litter his life, but Rita will not be denied. Gradually, through voracious consumption of the Canon of Western Literature, Rita learns what she believes to be a better song to sing.

But it's not that simple. Rita finds that people, even educated people, in the end, have only themselves to cling to, and Shaw, Blake, Ibsen and Chekov may help fill up the empty moments, but they can't take away the emptiness itself. What does Rita want? Frank? A baby? Her ex-husband? No. What Rita wants is choices, and the freedom to choose among them for herself, and getting there is warm and moving drama that elevates Educating Rita among the absolute best of its era and genre.

David Hentschel's synthesized soundtrack is absolutely wonderful. It is by now so obviously from another era that it allows you to be drawn even more into the film, giving it a more timeless than dated feel. The supporting cast is wonderful, including Michael Williams, who, aside from being Mr. Judi Densch for the last thirty years of his life, also received a Papal knighthood, and classically renowned actress Maureen Lipman who was later awarded a C.B.E. for her work in British theatre.

Ultimately, however, it is the sheer magic of Caine and Walters, no less so than with Harrison and Hepburn in My Fair Lady, that gives Rita the boundless charm, wit, and passion that have made it one of my favorite films of all time.

"Educating Rita" is not a huge motion picture. It portrays no earth shattering events. It teaches no overpowering moral lessons. It does not look into the depths of the human soul. This is a little motion picture, but like many little things, it is wonderful.

Educating Rita is really a filmed stage play. Julie Walters played the part of Rita on the stage. Michael Caine joins her as Frank in the film version and really puts his heart into the performance. The author shows you surprisingly little about the two characters and yet tells you a very great deal, and most importantly, he lets them grow as they must, not necessarily as we'd wish them to.

I cannot recommend this film highly enough. Watch it with somebody you like.

I was introduced to this movie when I was 5 and though I had no idea about the issues being dealt with I was mesmerized. As an American child I was fascinated by the "ultra-odd" culture and cars and streets and language and I loved every second of it. I think I've judged every film since by this one which would explain why I've never really enjoyed the "Hollywood happy ending". I think my favorite line is when Rita says, "It's fun, tragedy, isn't it?". AMEN. I rediscovered it in college and understood that Rita's journey for education came full circle, without convenient resolution, and I can completely relate. Great acting, great directing, truly a human drama ... I'd long for a sequel if sequel's weren't so damn awful. Brava Julie!

Michael Caine and TV favourite Julie Walters shine wonderfully in this film, which tells the story of 26-year-old Rita (Walters) wanting to discover herself by attending the Open University, where alcohol dependant Dr. Frank Bryant (Caine) is a teacher.

The movie follows these two main characters change and reevaluate their lives for the better through each other. Caine and Walters' chemistry is simply divine, and Maureen Lipman also makes an appearance as over the top and eccentric Trish, who on the outside, is this confident, bubbly woman, but on the inside is hurting badly because of her fears of being alone.

Both Caine and Walters won Best Actor and Best Actress awards for their performances (at the BAFTAs), and the movie itself won Best Film in 1984, and one look at Educating Rita tells you why. It's a film that's simply full of warmth and charm.

A strong British film and the perfect debut for the now legendary Julie Walters.

This wonderfully engaging and thought provoking movie far surpassed my expectations. It's an unusual variation on the old teacher / student story but with a mature twist that asks the viewer the question... Just which one of this pair is doing the teaching here, and exactly what is the subject?

Dr. Frank Bryant is an older, jaded, alcoholic college English professor. He's weary of the snobbish academic world, which he mocks with contempt, and weary of dissecting meaning out of literature for the pretentious but unenthusiastic students in his classes. He's assigned to tutor Rita, a feisty, uneducated Liverpool hairdresser / housewife in her mid 20's, who has enrolled in a college class to improve her language skills and also really to develop her mind. Frank finds Rita literally a breath of fresh air, chuckling at her amusing definition of the word 'assonance' and uncharacteristically moved by her candor, her respect for education, her bubbling eagerness to learn and develop. Frank actually prefers that she remain exactly as she is, fearing she'll come to resemble the pompous snobs to which he's grown all too accustomed, walking the halls of academia all around him.

Both teacher and student here already have 'significant others'. Frank is romantically involved with another teacher, Julia, who is carrying on an affair literally under his nose, so his personal life is in equivalent shambles to his professional situation. Rita is married to the uneducated, working class Denny, who's eager to start a family. She is secretly taking birth control pills, wanting to explore her own and life's possibilities before having children. Obviously conflict emerges here between this couple, with Denny actually quite a sympathetic character. He's not the villain of the piece at all (from my viewpoint), even though he does burn Rita's books, certainly not something to applaud. He just wants the simple things of life, obviously disapproving of his wife's educational endeavors for fear she'll grow away from him.

Michael Caine, in the role he was born to play, is completely convincing as the drunken, disillusioned Frank, who cannot get through his day without a drink. Julie Walters is equally perfect as Rita...first the earlier blonde, uneducated but academically keen housewife / hairdresser, and later the sophisticated woman into which she's transformed.

The dialogue is witty, and the rich relationship that develops between Frank and Rita compelling. No sex scenes here, just discussions of literature and mainly of life. These are two memorable characters that will truly engage your concern. After some additional courses abroad, Rita undergoes an amazing Pygmalion style metamorphosis in admittedly, as some have criticized, a rather unbelievably short time. She is transformed from the original naive, uneducated, working class housewife to a sophisticated literary critic...though her core, in my opinion, remains fundamentally unchanged.

As for the ending, I won't give it away. Will a May December romance emerge from all this tutelage as with that other Pygmalion pair, Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, of My Fair Lady fame? Or will these two ultimately go their separate ways, each altered forever by the other's influence? Personally, the moving, emotional ending left me feeling satisfied that the screenwriters had done their job right. Don't miss this sparkling and intelligent movie which casts attitudes toward education in such a compelling light.