Educating Rita (film)
Encyclopedia
Educating Rita is a 1983 film
1983 in film
-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...

 of Willy Russell's play of the same title
Educating Rita
Educating Rita is a stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell. It is a play for two actors set entirely in the office of an Open University lecturer....

 directed by Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert CBE is an English film director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:He was the son of music hall performers, and spent his early years travelling with his parents, and watching the shows from the side of the stage. He first performed on-stage at the age of 5, when asked to drive a...

 and stars Julie Walters
Julie Walters
Julie Walters, CBE is an English actress and novelist. She came to international prominence in 1983 for Educating Rita, performing in the title role opposite Michael Caine. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it won her BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress...

, Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....

, and Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...

 with a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Russell.

Premise

A Liverpudlian working-class girl wants to better herself by studying literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

. Her assigned Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...

 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
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 and her flatmate Trish's attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

.

Cast

  • Julie Walters
    Julie Walters
    Julie Walters, CBE is an English actress and novelist. She came to international prominence in 1983 for Educating Rita, performing in the title role opposite Michael Caine. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it won her BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress...

     as Susan "Rita" White
  • Michael Caine
    Michael Caine
    Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....

     as Dr. Frank Bryant
  • Michael Williams as Brian
  • Maureen Lipman
    Maureen Lipman
    Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...

     as Trish
  • Jeananne Crowley
    Jeananne Crowley
    Jeananne Crowley is an Irish actress and writer, remembered for her collaborations in British film and television. She appeared in the film Educating Rita and is possibly best known for her role as Nellie Keene in the BBC drama series Tenko.-Screen:Recently, Crowley has appeared in The Clinic and...

     as Julia
  • Malcolm Douglas
    Malcolm Douglas
    Malcolm Douglas was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party.He represented the Hunua electorate from 25 November 1978 after the 1978 general election, until 24 May 1979, when he was unseated by a decision of the Electoral Court in favour of Winston Peters...

     as Denny
  • Godfrey Quigley
    Godfrey Quigley
    Godfrey Quigley was an Irish stage, film and television actor.Quigley was born in Jerusalem where his father served as an officer in the British Army...

     as Rita's Father
  • Dearbhla Molloy
    Dearbhla Molloy
    Dearbhla Molloy is an Irish actress of the stage and screen from Dublin.Molloy consolidated her stage reputation at both the Abbey and the Gate theatres, coming to England to tour with an Abbey production. She was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company and has played Gertrude to Kenneth...

     as Elaine

Production

Julie Walters, in her feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

 debut, reprised her role from the stage production.

Although the setting of the film is Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, the film was shot in Dublin. Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

 is used as the setting for the university, and University College Dublin
University College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...

 in Belfield, Dublin 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
Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...

 and Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt Q.C. M.P. was an Irish barrister, politician, Member of Parliament , and the founder and first leader of a number of Irish nationalist parties and organisations, including the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870 and in 1873 the Home...

 and committee photographs in the former and a bust of John Pentland Mahaffy
John Pentland Mahaffy
The Rev. John Pentland Mahaffy GBE CVO was an Irish classicist and polymathic scholar.-Education and interests:...

 in the latter. No. 8 Hogan Avenue in the South Lotts
South Lotts
South Lotts is a small area to the south of the river Liffey in Dublin 4, 1 km east of Dublin City Centre, Ireland. It was created following the embankment of the River Liffey in 1711 between the city and Ringsend, thereby reclaiming the North and South Lotts...

 area of Ringsend
Ringsend
Ringsend is a southside inner suburb of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. It is located on the south bank of the River Liffey, about two kilometres east of the city centre, and is the southern terminus of the East Link Toll Bridge....

 was used for Rita's house in the film, and one in Burlington Road, Ballsbridge
Ballsbridge
Ballsbridge is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, named for the bridge spanning the River Dodder on the south side of the city. The sign on the bridge still proclaims it as "Ball's Bridge" in recognition of the fact that the original bridge in this location was built and owned by a Mr...

 for Bryant's. The scene in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 was filmed in Maynooth
National University of Ireland, Maynooth
The National University of Ireland, Maynooth , was founded by the Universities Act, 1997 as a constituent university of the National University of Ireland. It is Ireland's second oldest university, having been formed from St Patrick's College, Maynooth, itself founded in 1795.The university is...

, outside Dublin, and Pearse Station and Dublin Airport
Dublin Airport
Dublin Airport, , is operated by the Dublin Airport Authority. Located in Collinstown, in the Fingal part of County Dublin, 18.4 million passengers passed through the airport in 2010, making it the busiest airport in the Republic of Ireland, followed by Cork and Shannon...

 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 Stags head.

Critics

Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...

 called the film "an awkward blend of intellectual pretension and cute obvious humour ... the perfect play about literature for anyone who wouldn't dream of actually reading books"; she noted that "the essentially two-character play has been opened up to the point that it includes a variety of settings and subordinate figures, but it never approaches anything lifelike."

Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 gave the film (two stars out of four), calling the film a "forced march through a formula
Formula fiction
In popular culture, formula fiction is literature in which the storylines and plots have been reused to the extent that the narratives are predictable. It is similar to genre fiction, which identifies a number of specific settings that are frequently reused...

 relationship"; he said Russell's screen adaptation
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...

 "added mistresses, colleagues, husbands, in-laws, students and a faculty committee, all unnecessary" and said the playwright/screenwriter "start[ed] with an idealistic, challenging idea, and then cynically tr[ied] to broaden its appeal."

Awards and major nominations

The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures was founded in 1909 in New York City, just 13 years after the birth of cinema, to protest New York City Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr.'s revocation of moving-picture exhibition licenses on Christmas Eve 1908. The mayor believed that the new medium...

 placed Educating Rita second in its Top Ten Films list
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
The following is a list of the Top-10 films chosen annually by the National Board of Review, beginning in 1929. From 1968 till 2005, 29 times the NBR chose the film that would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Picture as Best Film...

 for 1983
National Board of Review Awards 1983
- Top Ten Films :#Betrayal, Terms of Endearment#Educating Rita#Tender Mercies#The Dresser#The Right Stuff#Testament#Local Hero#The Big Chill#Cross Creek#Yentl- Top Foreign Films :#Fanny and Alexander...

.

At the 37th British Academy Film Awards
37th British Academy Film Awards
The 37th British Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1984, honoured the best films of 1983.-Best Film: Educating Rita *Heat and Dust*Local Hero*Tootsie-Best Actor:...

, Educating Rita won Best Film
BAFTA Award for Best Film
This page lists the winners and nominees for the BAFTA Award for Best Film, BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language and Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film for each year, in addition to the retired earlier versions of those awards...

, with Caine and Walters receiving Best Actor/Actress awards. Walters was nominated for Best Newcomer
BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
-Best British Director, Producer or Writer in the First Film:*2006 - Red Road - Andrea Arnold**Black Sun – Gary Tarn**Pierrepoint – Christine Langan**London to Brighton – Paul Andrew Williams...

, Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...

 for Best Supporting Actress
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Actress in a Supporting Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding supporting performance in a film...

, and Willy Russell for Best Adapted Screenplay
BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Adapted Screenplay has been presented to its winners since 1968:-1980s:1983: Heat and Dust – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala*Betrayal – Harold Pinter...

; all but Lipman also received Oscars nominations
56th Academy Awards
The 56th Academy Awards were presented April 9, 1984 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Johnny Carson.The Best Supporting Actress winner this year was unique...

.

Retrospective assessments

In 1999, the film was among the BFI Top 100 British films
BFI Top 100 British films
In 1999 the British Film Institute surveyed 1000 people from the world of British film and television to produce the BFI 100 list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were 'culturally British'...

.

In 2007, while promoting the remake of Sleuth
Sleuth (2007 film)
Sleuth is a 2007 thriller film directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Jude Law and Michael Caine. The screenplay by Harold Pinter is an adaption of Anthony Shaffer's Tony Award-winning play Sleuth...

, Caine called Educating Rita "the last good picture [he] made before [he] mentally retired."

Proposed remake

In November 2002, the then-82-year-old director Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert CBE is an English film director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:He was the son of music hall performers, and spent his early years travelling with his parents, and watching the shows from the side of the stage. He first performed on-stage at the age of 5, when asked to drive a...

 went public with plans to remake his film "with a black cast that could include Halle Berry
Halle Berry
Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...

 and Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...

", with principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....

 to commence in 2003. The project, however, never got off the ground.

External links

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