Career Girls

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. It came on HBO the other night, and it was late so I was about to go to bed. I decided to just watch the beginning, but started to become quite interested in it. It turned out to be a pretty darn good little movie and I am glad I stayed up to watch it. Although it is a little different and a little slow, I thought it was a genuinely good movie with some very powerful performances. The characters are strong and the story is simple, but sweet.

I quite enjoy re-playing Mike Leigh's older films, this time reviewing them and admittedly, Career Girls was far from being my (or, it seems, most other people's) first choice.

I'd recorded mine from Film4's broadcast, just before the release of his latest 'Another Year' the advantage being Mr Leigh introduced it himself and said that it was often overlooked and he wasn't quite sure why. I had seen it myself on a couple of occasions before, most probably on the same channel and always quite liked it. It's not my favourite but always found it better once fully immersed.

Is that because I'm a bloke, who never went to Uni and never had to flat-share, but there again, the 80s and 90s were formative years for me too.

Anyway, as is usual with almost Leigh films, the opening few minutes always seem to have annoying characters that we really rather not share any time with, doing their best (worst?) to put us off. However, once we get used to them and their strange, odd ways, they become part of our screen lives and as if they were people we actually know, we put up with their annoying aspects and revel in their good, Leigh's folk are very human, almost TOO much so.

So, Leigh's purpose was to show how passages of time, circumstance and education, plus friendship can follow in both predictive and unpredicted ways with the reunion of two Uni classmates ten years later, with frequent, but obvious, flashbacks to the student years, we can see how people can change. Side by side, the contrasts are very marked, almost too much so, but as we usually witness our friends forming slowly, year by year, who's to say that Leigh is not right?

There's a smaller pool of main characters than with the better Leighs, and as with say, the later but even less good Happy Go Lucky, there is less respite from the obnoxious and smaller variety in which to spice up the story.

Oddly, considering it's the female lead characters that Leigh is championing it's the two male leads that we see regularly on TV and cinema screen these days - Mark Benton as the twitchy, overweight Goth who gets to know them in student digs but always finds solace and comfort in food instead of confronting fears, including women; these two women. And Andy Serkis, who Leigh says he made as an opposite to Benton's sweet nature as possible and in Serkis, we have a 'disgusting pig' as Leigh refers to him. Both chauvinist and arrogant he could be seen as the ultimate product of the Thatcherite Yuppie years and again, typically Leigh, he doesn't portray this subtly and quite rightly, we want to leave his company as quickly as possible but perhaps more importantly, want our 'girls' to, as well. There are lots of comedic takes on Serkis' lifestyle 'choices' and this does lighten the emotional load.

The two female leads, Katrin Cartlidge and Lynda Steadman though do not seem to be gracing our screens at all right now, though Cartlidge did feature in Leigh's Topsy Turvy (1999) and previously in the excellent Naked(Leigh's best film, probably) from 1993. Steadman seemed to have been in TV dramas about then but - all according to IMDb - nothing since 2003.

Maybe Mike Leigh has made too much out of political and economic markers to make us really care for any of the people here. Yes, they're engaging with their character traits and whilst we sort of feel a part of their world, albeit briefly, we don't necessarily want to be. However, there are some nice down to earth and more reflective moments, they are just a bit too far between to be make the film totally enjoyable.

I've seen a lot of Mike Leigh's films and while I know that Career Girls isn't considered by most critics his best film, I think it's his most touching (at least from the ones I have seen). Annie and Hannah were roomates in college for 4 years, after they graduated Annie returned to her hometown and now 6 years later she's visiting her old friend in London for the first time in those 6 years. Re-uniting with old friends is something that has happened to all of us and always brings back the most bittersweet memories. This is a beautiful film and I recommend it to everyone.

As a life-long Mike Leigh fan, I first saw CAREER GIRLS on its cinema release a couple of years ago. No, it didn't make quite the same impact as (for example) NAKED or SECRETS AND LIES, but nonetheless it does boast impressive and detailed performances from its lead actors. Katrin Cartlidge's work was always intense and magnetic (I was lucky enough to see her on stage in Theatre de Complicite's MNEMONIC in 1998) - and her recent, tragic death from septicaemia in September 2002, aged 41, was a desperately sad loss to top-notch acting and independent film making.

This is one of Mike Leigh's more easy-going efforts, overall, a bit mannered, sort of an urban picaresque, "Naked"-lite if you will. When I saw it on initial release, I liked it fine, but thought it would be memorable mainly for particular bits--the very funny scene with the obnoxious yuppie flat owner, the very powerful scenes with Mark Benton as Ricky--rather than for any coherence. I saw it again this week and it is sticking in my mind with more impact than before; to me it now resonates as a meditation on the need to get on with one's life, and the costs (in friendship, soulfulness, caring) of doing so, and the tragedy of those who just can't make the jump. Not one of Leigh's greatest films, but like everything he's made, well worth the time.