Taglines: Raves For Rita!
Educating Rita movie storyline. In Liverpool, twenty-seven-year-old hairdresser Rita (Dame Julie Walters) decides to complete her basic education before having children, as desired by her husband Denny (Malcolm Douglas). She joins a literature course in an open university and is tutored by the middle-aged Dr. Frank Bryant (Sir Michael Caine), an alcoholic and debauched professor from the upper-class, whose life has left him emotionally drained, without self-esteem.
Frank lives with Julia (Jeananne Crowley), who’s also a professor, and has a loveless marriage. Julia has a love affair with Dean Brian (Michael Williams). Rita’s humor and determination to improve herself is contagious. She gives motivation to Frank, who helps prepare her for the exams to join the university, and be able to leave Denny. Will she succeed in the exams?
Educating Rita is a 1983 British comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert with a screenplay by Willy Russell based on his 1980 stage play. The film stars Michael Caine, Julie Walters, Michael Williams and Maureen Lipman. It won multiple major awards for best actor and best actress and was nominated for three Academy Awards. Caine and Walters both won BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for best actor and actress. The British Film Institute ranked Educating Rita the 84th greatest British film of the 20th century.
The film is set in an unnamed English university and port city – by implication, Liverpool (most of the working-class characters have Scouse accents). However, it was shot entirely in and around Dublin, which was given an English appearance: in several street scenes, for example, British red telephone boxes appear.
Trinity College, Dublin, is used as the setting for the university, and University College Dublin, in Belfield, is used for Rita’s summer school. The rooms used by Bryant as his office and tutorial room were those of the College Historical Society and the University Philosophical Society, respectively; and while the building was considerably refurnished, the production chose to leave portraits of Douglas Hyde and Isaac Butt and committee photographs in the former, and a bust of John Pentland Mahaffy in the latter. No. 8 Hogan Avenue in Dublin 2 near Grand Canal Dock was used for Rita’s house in the film, and one in Burlington Road, Ballsbridge for Bryant’s. The scene where Rita runs into her ex Denny and his new wife was filmed in the South Lotts area of Ringsend.
The scene in France was filmed in Maynooth, County Kildare, and Pearse Station and Dublin Airport were also used. The scene in the pub was shot in The Stag’s Head pub on Dame Court in Dublin. However, the pub which Rita enters is the Dame Tavern which is opposite The Stag’s Head. Filming also took place in Stoneybatter, with Aughrim Street Church being used for the wedding scene. Stanhope Street School was used as a production base.
Film Review for Educating Rita
If only I’d been able to believe they were actually reading the books, then everything else would have fallen into place. But I didn’t believe it. And so “Educating Rita,” which might have been a charming human comedy, disintegrated into a forced march through a formula relationship.
The movie stars Michael Caine as a British professor of literature and Julie Walters as the simple Cockney girl who comes to him for night-school lessons. She has problems: She is a working-class punk with an unimaginative husband. He has problems: He is a drunk whose only friends are cheating on him with each other. They have problems: Walters begins to idealize Caine, who then falls in love with her.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say they both fall into love with the remake job they’d like to do on each other. Caine sees Walters as a fresh, honest, unspoiled intelligence. She sees him as a man who ought to sober up and return to his first love, writing poems. The idea of the curmudgeon and the Cockney was not new when Bernard Shaw wrote “Pygmalion,” and it is not any newer in “Educating Rita.” But it could have been entertaining, if only I’d believed they were reading those books.
They pass the books back and forth a lot. They sometimes read a line or two. There is a lot of talk about Blake this and Wordsworth that. But it’s all magic. The books are like incantations that, used properly, will exorcise Cockney accents and alcoholism. Because even the movie doesn’t really believe that, it departs from the stage play to bring in a lot of phony distractions.
The original “Educating Rita,” a long-running London stage hit by Willy Russell, had only the two characters. They were on the stage together for a long time, and by the end of the play we had shared in their developing relationship. Russell’s movie rewrite has added mistresses, colleagues, husbands, in-laws, students and a faculty committee, all unnecessary.
To the degree that “Educating Rita” does work, the credit goes to Michael Caine, who plays a man weary and kind, funny and self-hating. There is a real character there, just as there was in Caine’s boozy diplomat in the recent flop “Beyond the Limit.” In both movies, though, the characters are not well-served by the story. They’re made to deliver speeches, take positions and make decisions that are required by the plot, not by their own inner promptings.
When Caine’s professor, at the end of this movie, flies off to Australia to maybe sober up and maybe make a fresh start, it’s a total cop-out — not by him, but by the screenplay. Maybe that’s what happens when you start with an idealistic, challenging idea, and then cynically try to broaden its appeal.
Awards and nominations
Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Actor (Michael Caine) – Nominated
Academy Award for Best Actress (Julie Walters) – Nominated
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Willy Russell) – Nominated
Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best English-Language Foreign Film – Nominated
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Michael Caine) – Won
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Julie Walters) – Won
Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay (Willy Russell) – Nominated
British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Film – Won
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Michael Caine) – Won
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Julie Walters) – Won
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Maureen Lipman) – Nominated
BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles (Julie Walters) – Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Willy Russell)
National Board of Review
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films – Won
Educating Rita (1983)
Directed by: Lewis Gilbert
Starring: Michael Caine, Julie Walters, Michael Williams, Maureen Lipman, Jeananne Crowley, Jeananne Crowley, Godfrey Quigley, Dearbhla Molloy, Kim Fortune, Hilary Reynolds
Screenplay by: Willy Russell
Cinematography by: Frank Watts
Film Editing by: Garth Craven
Costume Design by: Candy Paterson
Set Decoration by: Josie MacAvin
Art Direction by: Maurice Fowler
Music by: David Hentschel
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Rank Film Distributors (UK), Columbia Pictures (USA)
Release Date: June 16, 1983 (UK), October 28, 1983 (USA)
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