Educating Rita

Name: Educating Rita
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: September 21, 1983
Duration: 110 min
Rating: 54
Cast: Julie Walters, Michael Caine

1983

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Mixed or average reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews

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Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Ratings

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6.9

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6.9	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Ratings

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Educating Rita

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Movie Details & Credits

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: September 21, 1983 | PG

Starring: Julie Walters, Michael Caine

Summary: Bored with her life as a hairdresser, and under pressure from her husband to start a family, Rita enrolls in literature tutorials at a British university determined to better herself. (Paramount Pictures)

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Rating: PG

Runtime: 110 min

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Critic Reviews

Staff (Not Credited)

Aided greatly by an expert film adaptation by its playwright, Willy Russell, Gilbert has come up with an irresistible story about a lively, lower-class British woman hungering for an education and the rather, staid, degenerating English professor who reluctantly provides her with one. Read full review

Movie Nation Roger Moore

One of the finest films of the ’80s, a high point for Caine, Walters and Gilbert and a movie I think about all the time because it literally changed my life. Read full review

Empire Ian Nathan

Lewis Gilbert, and two career best performances from his leading actors, give this film such energy it leaves the pleasant aroma of life and possibility. Read full review

Jay Scott

The achievement of Educating Rita is a function of the distinguished performances, the agreeably archetypal situation and the scissor-sharp lines. [23 Sep 1983]

Dave Kehr

The film doesn't transcend its genre, but it's an honorable achievement within it. Read full review

Roger Ebert

Educating Rita, which might have been a charming human comedy, disintegrated into a forced march through a formula relationship. Read full review

Michael Blowen

If you were ever curious how a bad director can destroy the work of two talented actors and a slight, but funny, script, you need look no further than Educating Rita. [28 Oct 1983]

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lasttimeisaw

Sep 18, 2014

It is not a British version of MY FAIR LADY (1964, 6/10), EDUCATING RITA goes a bit higher than that, it is about how literature can improve one’s listless life and transfigure one’s entire bearing from within.

Rita, aka Susan White (Walters) is a 26-year-old hairdresser, married to anIt is not a British version of MY FAIR LADY (1964, 6/10), EDUCATING RITA goes a bit higher than that, it is about how literature can improve one’s listless life and transfigure one’s entire bearing from within.

Rita, aka Susan White (Walters) is a 26-year-old hairdresser, married to an ordinary electrician for 6 years, she never goes to college, but finds herself as a thirsty bookworm, thus under the aim of completing her education and take the exam, she eagerly takes an open university tutorial from a college literature professor Dr. Frank Bryant (Caine), a middle-age divorcé and drunkard. So it is a story of Rita’s transformation from a low-class commoner to a mature woman who realises her self-worth and does embrace to the life she is really pining for. At the same time, it is a brilliant two-hander, Frank’s life orbit also veers dramatically since the two form a thoroughly cordial friendship. (I was so relieved it didn’t end up like a Hollywood mawkish rom-com with artificial happy ending.)

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