Educating Rita

The 1983-film Educating Rita is a comedy about a woman who decides to change her life. The Lewis Gilbert directed film was based on a play by Willy Russell.

Julie Walters plays Rita, a working-class hairdresser in her late twenties who decides that she doesn't want to settle down and have a baby, but instead dedices that she should try and get the education she never had.

Rita enrols in a literature course and totters off to university on stiletto heels and into the office of Dr. Frank Bryant (Michael Caine), a washed-up, alcoholic professor who doesn't know what to make of her. As the story progresses, a friendship soon develops between the two. Frank teaches Rita how to value her own insights while still being able to beat the exams.

As the fillm progresses, we see how Rita slowly changes and grows into intellectual maturity - first in appearance, and later in her discrimination of books, wine and heady conversation.

The conflict between Rita's background and her newly found college career, is shown when Rita attempts to hide her birth control pills from her husband, who has "ordered" her to stop using them for some time. At the discovery of this hidden defiance, her husband burns her books. Rita realizes that the woman he knew no longer exists. She has changed too.

A witty script and excellent performances are to be found in this funny and touching account of a young women's quest to find herself.

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