- published: 14 Oct 2014
- views: 8062
Educating Rita is a 1983 film based upon Willy Russell's play of the same title directed by Lewis Gilbert and stars Julie Walters, Michael Caine, and Maureen Lipman with a screenplay by Russell.
A Liverpudlian working-class girl wants to better herself by studying literature. Her assigned Open University professor, however, has long since openly taken to the bottle, and soon develops misgivings about her ability to adapt to academia. Frank (Caine) is a jaded university lecturer, who describes his occupational ability as 'appalling but good enough for his appalling students'. His passion for the subject is reignited by Rita (Walters), whose technical ability for the subject is limited by her lack of education but whose enthusiasm Frank finds refreshing.
The film focuses on how Rita struggles to still interact with her peers from her own working class background, but similarly struggles to fit into the educated middle-class. Rita's original preconceptions of the educated classes having better lives and being happier people are brought into question throughout the film through Frank's failing social life and alcoholism and her flatmate Trish's attempted suicide.
A young wife decides to complete her education and take her exams. She meets a professor who teaches her to value her own insights while still being able to beat the exams. The change in her status causes friction between her and her husband.
Keywords: adultery, alcohol, based-on-play, character-name-in-title, college, doctor, hairdresser, liverpool, professor, reference-to-shakespeare's-macbeth
Dr. Frank Bryant: Did you know that Macbeth was a maggoty apple? Not many people know that!
[Frank has just been officially reprimanded for being drunk while giving a lecture]::Dr. Frank Bryant: Sod them, eh, Rita! Sod them!::Rita: Will they sack you?::Dr. Frank Bryant: Good God no. That would involve making a decision. Pissed is all right. To get the sack, it would have to be rape on a grand scale. And not just with students, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. No, for dismissal it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Bursar.
[Rita discovers Frank packing all his books into crates]::Rita: Have they sacked you?::Dr. Frank Bryant: I made rather a night of it last night so they're giving me a holiday. Two years in Australia.::Rita: Did you bugger the Bursar?::Dr. Frank Bryant: Metaphorically.
Rita: Christ! My customer! She only come in for a demi-wave, she'll come out looking like a flippin' muppet!
Collins: Doctor Bryant, I don't think you're listening to me.::Dr. Frank Bryant: Mr Collins, I don't think you're saying anything to me.::Collins: Doctor, are you drunk?::Dr. Frank Bryant: Drunk? Of course I'm drunk. You don't really expect me to teach this when I'm sober.::Collins: [angrily bundling his books together] Then you won't mind if I leave your tutorial.::Dr. Frank Bryant: Why should I mind?
[first words to Rita as she opens the door of her flat]::Trish: Wouldn't you just *die* without Mahler?
[Rita is being nosy about Frank's marriage]::Dr. Frank Bryant: We split up, Rita, because of poetry.::Rita: You what?::Dr. Frank Bryant: One day, my wife explained to me that, for the past fifteen years, my output as a poet had dealt entirely with the part of our lives in which we discovered each other.::Rita: Are you a poet?::Dr. Frank Bryant: Was. And so, to give me something new to write about, she left me. A very noble woman, my wife - she left me for the good of literature. And remarkably it worked.::Rita: What, you wrote a lot of good stuff, did ya?::Dr. Frank Bryant: No. I stopped writing altogether.
[Trish has just tried to kill herself; Rita goes to visit her in hospital]::Rita: Why?::Trish: Darling, why not?::Rita: Oh, Trish, don't. Come on, it's all right, don't cry. You're still here.::Trish: That's why I'm crying - it didn't work. It didn't bloody work.::Rita: Trish. Look, you didn't really mean to kill yourself. You were just...::Trish: Just what, darling? Poor Susan. You think you've got everything, don't you?::Rita: Trish, you have.::Trish: Oh yes. When I listen to poetry and music, then I can live. You see, darling, the rest of the time it's just me. And that's not enough.
Rita's Mother: There must be better songs to sing than this...
Rita's Father: Say, Denny. Denny, I'm sorry for you, lad. If she was a wife of mine I'd drown her.::Rita: If I was a wife of yours I'd drown meself.