Thematically, I admire Lewis Gilbert's 1983 film, Educating Rita, very much. Dramatically, it's less successful, though still pretty good. This film is about as penetrating a study of what higher education does and does not accomplish as any I've come across. On the other hand, as an example of the Cockney girl makes good kind of story, it's not nearly so touching as, say, Pygmalion (1938). Educating Rita was one of the highlights in the career of British director Lewis Gilbert.

Historical Background: Lewis Gilbert was born on March 6th, 1920, in London. He got an early start as a performer, working as a child actor on London stages and in films. Gilbert did his part during World War II by working in the film unit of the U.S. Air Corps. Following the war, he began directing feature films, starting with The Little Ballerina (1947), a children's film. In the fifties, Gilbert acquired a reputation making war dramas, the best of which was Sink the Bismarck! (1960). His 1961 film, The Greengage Summer, was released in America under the title Loss of Innocence. Gilbert scored a major commercial success in 1966 with Alfie. That earned him a series of big-budget assignments, including three of the James Bond films: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Moonraker (1979). The best of his films after 1980 was the present one, Educating Rita (1983).

The Story: Rita (a.k.a. Susan) is a twenty-six year-old hairdresser from Liverpool who desperately craves an education. She's not simply hoping to get ahead or to qualify for a better job. She actually wants to improve her mind and is thus precisely the kind of student that faculty love to encounter. Rita signs up for the government-funded Open University program aimed at non-traditional students from the working class. She's had next to no formal schooling and speaks with a Cockney accent.

Rita is assigned Dr. Frank Bryant (Michael Caine) as her tutor. Frank is a burned-out, disenchanted teacher of comparative literature, but mostly a drunk going through the motions of his job, even sometimes showing up for class semi-intoxicated. He generally loathes his students because they speak in empty academic platitudes. It's not that he considers them beneath himself. His loathing for himself and his colleagues is just as deep. Everything about the academic trappings strikes Frank as hollow, even his own mediocre poetry, with its finely turned phrases and pro forma literary allusions.

Rita suddenly appears in Frank's office like a breath of fresh air. She's vivacious, irreverent, charming, and a blond knockout. Frank surmises immediately that Rita, for all her lack of education, is fresher and more alive than any of the people that he works with routinely within the hallowed walls of his college. Frank insists in all sincerity that he has nothing to teach her and that she'd be better off just leaving. "I am afraid, Rita, that you will find that there is much less to me than meets the eye." She, however, is determined to acquire his trappings, however hollow he might judge them to be. "See," she says, "you can say dead cleaver things like that, can't ya? I wish I could talk like that. It's brilliant."

Rita gets no support whatsoever for her endeavor from her family. Her husband, Denny (Malcolm Douglas), just wants her to start having babies and resents her efforts at self-improvement. Rita's father (Godfrey Quigley) wonders when she will start producing grandchildren. Denny even burns Rita's books and papers, leading to the couple's ultimate breakup. Rita works hard but progress is slow. Her ideas are fresh and original, but not consistent with academic standards. Gradually, however, Rita is turned onto Shakespeare and Chekhov. She passes through a stage in which she feels like a half-breed: too educated for the folks she used to hang out with in the pub but not sophisticated enough for her fellow students.

Rita's horizons continue to broaden. She takes a summer program of studies and later moves in with Trish (Maureen Lipman), a bohemian gal with a love for Mahler, health foods, and gushing phrases, but little genuine intellectual depth. Rita learns to talk the talk and other students begin listening to her admiringly. Rita begins to feel liberated by a new self-confidence, but Frank can't help wondering if the new Rita isn't somehow less than the unspoiled hairdresser who he first encountered. When Rita's roommate Trish tries to kill herself with sleeping pills, Rita begins to understand that education and personal happiness are two different issues. One of her mentors is an alcoholic and another attempted to kill herself. In a sense, that realization provides something of a capstone to Rita's education: learning to question conventional wisdom and assumptions in search of deeper wisdom.

Themes: Educating Rita is the finest film discourse on what higher education can and cannot provide that I've ever encountered. This film is no paean to education, however. It is at least as critical of higher education as laudatory. The issues raised cluster mainly around three concerns. Author Willy Russell's first point is that education will make you a different person but not necessarily a better one. Higher education helps people acquire a new set of trappings, including possibly cleverer speech, ability to reference ideas and toss off allusions, or a taste for "more cultured" forms of music and literature, but what's sacrificed is some of the straight forward directness and freshness of the uneducated mind. Oftentimes, the more sophisticated persona of the educated person is also a more pretentious one. If educated people sometimes find the conversations of the working class boring, it's usually equally the case the other way around. Why talk about Keats and Blake when you can talk about who's bonkin' whom? If a person longs for the kind of dialog and intellectual life that comes with education, then education will make that person more the person they want to be, but not a better one. It's just another kind of song to sing. Frank has come to see all of the academic jargon and assumptions and even the conventions of literature as just another hollow shell. He is therefore of two minds when the fresh, bright, and irreverent Rita comes to him under the special Open University provision, hoping to be transformed into an educated individual. Frank wonders whether she isn't better off as the person she already is.

The second set of issues revolves around the distinction between the trappings of knowledge and an ability to think critically. I've been in the higher education game for almost 35 years, in addition to my years as a student, and I can tell you that professionals in higher education fully understand that imparting knowledge is not at all the same thing as teaching students how to think. Understanding that distinction, however, is not the same thing as knowing how to successfully impart critical thinking skills. I can say with confidence that every student that graduates from the university where I work has acquired a great deal of knowledge and information. I'd even go on record as saying that most graduate with enhanced writing and quantitative skills. I have my doubts, however, whether all or even most have improved their capacity to think critically, to question, to doubt, to analyze, to comprehend the world in which they live, to appreciate other cultures, or to better appreciate the arts. Some have strengthened themselves in one or more of those ways, but I sometimes suspect more from their own initiatives and inherent proclivities than from anything higher education specifically confers. Even among my colleagues (all highly educated), I meet both profound thinkers and others possessed of education without wisdom, judgment without moral sensitivity, or viewpoints founded on grotesquely faulty epistemologies. The latter group may look and sound educated, but the quality of their education is only skin-deep. They've stopped challenging assumptions, creating poetry, searching for underlying meaning, reflecting on established patterns, or making informed judgments. They've acquired an educated reflex, but nothing more.

The third set of issues raised in Educating Rita is the inability of education to safeguard against depression or other kinds of mental health problems. Educated people are subject to the same range of emotional derangements as are blue-collar workers. The only difference is that educated people are more adept at couching their problems in intellectual terms. Educated people are sometimes more resistant to treatment for their psychological problems precisely because they're so effective at erecting cognitive defenses and rationalizations for their problems. Thus, the depressed intellectual wraps up his mood problem in philosophical musings about existential isolation or the hollowness of artistic or literary expression. They convince themselves that their nihilistic perspective is dictated by intellectual honesty rather than by the depressed mood from which they suffer. Frank is "burned-out," finds academic trappings meaningless, and has turned to drink. The pretentious but ultimately shallow Trish tries to kill herself with sleeping pills after a steady diet of Mahler. Higher education does not typically teach its recipients how to stay in touch with their feelings or to deal with whatever affective deficiencies begin to emerge.

Production Values: Willy Russell wrote the screenplay for this film, based on his own long-running London stage hit. The play was a two-character affair, but Russell added a variety of peripheral roles to open it up a bit and create more obstacles to Rita's ascension as an individual. It's a multi-layered story that raises a multitude of issues about the value and limitations of education and the nature of psychological health, all in the context of stimulating ideas about literature, poetry, and music. That's a lot to accomplish with a script. The two main characters are well drawn and complex. Frank and Rita scrape against each other in ways that will interest most audience members. My two complaints about the script are that some of the dialog, especially early on, is not especially credible and the story's ending is a bit of a cop-out.

There's nothing very special about either the cinematography or the soundtrack for this film except that the latter gets a bit grating at times. This is an idea-based film, not an especially visual one. There are some competent sets, such as the flamingo club.

Michael Caine does a fine job portraying the "geriatric hippy," an emotional cripple adrift in his sense of the futility of his own existence and that of everyone with whom he works. He's defeated by life and going through the motions – until Rita blows in through his office door like a wild zephyr. Caine's other work includes roles in Zulu (1964), Alfie (1966), The Ipcress File (1965), The Italian Job (1969), Kidnapped (1971), Get Carter (1971), A Bridge Too Far (1977), The Whistle Blower (1986), Mona Lisa (1986), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Death Becomes Her (1992),The Cider House Rules (1999), and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002).

For Julie Walters, her part as Rita (a.k.a. Susan) was a career opportunity. She never again had such a great film role, though she had a colorful one as Mrs. Wilkinson in Billy Elliot (2000). It was essential to the success of Educating Rita that they find a fresh face and an actress with a lot of spunk and energy, and Walters bounded out of obscurity to make this part her own. She has to grow and change throughout the film, as well as affecting a variety of accents and manners of speech. Her enthusiasm will grab hold of most viewers and never let go for the course of the film.

Bottom-Line: Dramatically, I give this film just three stars. Thematically, it's a solid five, so I'll split the difference and rate it at four. The film will most appeal to those with some interest in issues pertaining to higher education. The two lead performances are very strong, but the rest of the production values, such as sound and images, are just mediocre. I recommend this film mainly for viewers interested in meaningful discourse about higher education in general and literature in particular. The film's running time is 110 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older