Product: Educating Rita (UK) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]
Rating: 5.0
One of the greatest love stories ever filmed
Lewis Gilbert's 1983 masterpiece, a sensitive and emotionally-satisfying adaptation of Willy Russel's intelligent and insightful two-character play. Gilbert and Russel would team up again for the wonderful "Shirley Valentine," but their work in this film remains unparalleled. Michael Caine gives one of the most memorable performances in an illustrious career, disappearing into his Frank character, and Julie Walters is magnificent as Rita/Susan. The music by David Hentschel is perfectly appropriate, the cinematography by Frank Watts is inspired, the script is both touching and honest, but the magic of this film is in the interplay between the two main characters. This film captures the journey towards self-awareness embodied in education, as the Rita/Susan character develops from hairdresser to student, intellectual, dilitante, and finally into someone very different than at the start of the film yet still undeniably and uniquely "Rita." The greatest gift one person can give another is the love of learning, and thus I feel this is among the greatest love stories ever committed to celluloid. The ending might be "as inevitable as tragedy," in the words of Willy Russel, but the relationship between Frank and Rita made their emotional journey worthwhile, and we are all the richer for their trip.