Product: Educating Rita (UK) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]
Rating: 5.0
Great movie
This film holds up remarkably well after all these years because of Michael Caine's and Julie Walters' brilliant portrayals as the two main characters. Walters shows the evolution of Rita without seeming to act at all, she's so natural and comfortable in the role. Michael Caine is, well, Michael Caine, playing a role here that could have been written for him. The other characters are also well cast, even though they have relatively little screen time. The movie does have something of the feel of a stage play, but the director keeps it from feeling claustrophobic by inserting some beautiful outdoor sequences that fit well with the story and also open things up a bit. The soundtrack is really the only thing about the film that seems dated; all of the music is done with s synthesizer, which at the time of the film's release was probably considered quite trendy, but now just sounds sort of cheesy. However, once you get used to it, you forget about it and it does not interfere with enjoying the film.The video transfer is simply not up to today's standards, with a washed-out image that I do not recall noticing even when I watched it on HBO years ago. It looks to me as if nothing at all was done to clean the image up before the transfer was made.There are no extras at all, which is unfortunate. Walters and Caine are still both active and it would have been interesting to hear their commmentary.Still, this is a classic and the movie itself more than compensates for the marginal transfer and lack of DVD extras.