Educating Rita: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Transformation
"Educating Rita," a 1983 British comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert, presents a compelling narrative of personal transformation and the challenges of transcending social barriers. Based on Willy Russell's 1980 stage play, the film stars Michael Caine as Frank Bryant, a jaded literature professor, and Julie Walters as Susan, a working-class hairdresser who seeks to redefine her life through education, initially calling herself Rita. The film garnered widespread acclaim, winning BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for both Caine and Walters, and receiving nominations for three Academy Awards.
The Allure of Change: Rita's Quest for Self-Liberation
Susan, a 26-year-old hairdresser, feels trapped by the monotony of her working-class existence. Dissatisfied with her routine and fearing that motherhood would further confine her, she yearns for something more profound. This desire for self-improvement leads her to enroll in an Open University literature course, where she is assigned to Frank Bryant as her tutor. As Rita tells Frank, she wants to learn "everything" as a way of achieving self-liberation. She is eager and enthusiastic, street-wise but intellectually naive, filled with a longing to learn and grow. So determined is she to alter her life that she has changed her name, from the plain-sounding "Susan" that appears on her registration papers, to the more exotic "Rita," which she adopts in honor of the author of the sexually explicit novel, Rubyfruit Jungle.
The Open University, founded in 1969, provided university-level education for non-traditional students, offering "degrees for dishwashers," as Rita puts it. With no formal requirements for admission, the Open University declares that "as long as you are over 18 and want to study, we will accept you." Rita, at age 26, is thus a typical Open University student.
A Professor's Crisis: Frank's Weariness and Rediscovery
Frank Bryant, a middle-aged professor and lapsed poet, is disillusioned with his life and career. He sees Walters as a fresh, honest, unspoiled intelligence. He was once a poet, but he now feels that his work was without merit. Divorced from his first wife, living with an ex-student, he drinks his way through the day, a bottle of whiskey hidden behind the Dickens on his bookshelf. He describes himself as "an appalling teacher," having long ago openly taken to the bottle. However, Rita's enthusiasm reignites his passion for literature, offering a refreshing contrast to his jaded perspective. 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.
An Unlikely Connection: The Tutor-Student Dynamic
In the opening scene, these two vastly different characters encounter one another for the first time, each finding something deeply appealing about the other. For Frank, Rita is "the first breath of air" to have entered his stale life in years. For Rita, Frank is "a crazy mad piss artist who wants to throw his students through the window"--the kind of antic figure she never expected to find behind the solemn gates of a university. And so they begin their joint adventure, he the mentor, she the eager student, both heading into unknown territory.
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The immediate goal of that journey is the examination Rita must pass to qualify for a degree. During the next several scenes, Frank and Rita work their way through a succession of distinguished, and required, authors--E.M. Forster, Ibsen, Chekhov--each presenting an obstacle and a discovery to the knowledge-hungry young woman. Forster she initially dismisses as "crap;" Ibsen's great play, Peer Gynt, she treats in a single, dismissive sentence of five words.
As Rita delves into literature, she begins to understand its relevance to life, grasping the intricate web of cause and effect that has shaped her experience. She learns what Forster means by saying "only connect." And she also learns to see in Peer Gynt's restless wanderings an image of her own quest for self-discovery. Eventually she begins going to the theater on her own, making the intoxicating discovery of Shakespeare's power in a production of Macbeth. Her essays improve, her grasp of books and ideas grows stronger, and she begins making palpable progress toward her goals.
Obstacles and Transformations: Rita's Challenges
Rita's journey is not without its challenges. Her husband, Denny, represents the spiritual inertia of the working-class world she is striving to leave behind and desperately wants his wife not to change. At one point, Denny burns all her books and essays in an attempt to stifle Rita's educational aspirations. But she perseveres.
Then, in the final scene of the first act, she arrives in Frank's office to tell him that Denny has ordered her out of the house, claiming she has "betrayed" him, though not with another man. Rather her betrayal lies in her love of education, and her determination to become a new woman, no longer the docile, resigned girl he married.
This domestic upheaval is a turning-point in Rita's life, a boundary marker between her old existence and the new world she is seeking to enter. And we see the intensity of her determination to cross that boundary when she insists, in spite of the upheavals in her private life, in discussing with Frank her essay on Macbeth. Nothing will stop her, not dispossession from her home, not rejection by her husband, not even the inherent difficulty of thinking and writing well. The act ends with her insisting that she and Frank go on with the work of criticizing her essay regardless of her domestic problems or her academic shortcomings:
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If I do somethin' that's crap, I don't want pity, you just tell me, that's crap. (She picks up the essay.) Here, it's crap. (She rips it up.) Right. So we dump that in the bin, (She does so.) an' we start again.
Meanwhile, Frank has been growing ever fonder of Rita, seeing in her qualities of vitality and joyousness that have long been absent from his life. She has become his most important student, presenting him with the kinds of challenge and fulfillment that his work in the regular university program doesn't provide. In fact his relationship with Rita closely resembles the myth on which G.B. Shaw based his play, Pygmalion, which later became the musical-comedy, My Fair Lady. Like Professor Higgins, Frank is both transforming his student and falling in love with her. And also like Higgins, Frank discovers that his "creation" develops a mind of her own, making her no longer utterly dependent on her teacher.
Shifting Dynamics: Rita's Independence and Frank's Response
This process is well-advanced by the beginning of the second act. Several months have elapsed, including summer vacation, during which Rita, newly independent, lived in London and attended school in the city. Back now to start the fall semester, she is full of newly-acquired knowledge and self-confidence. She requests that they study a "dead good poet," and when Frank suggests Blake, she announces that she has already read his work in summer school. Frank is taken aback by this piece of information, and also by Rita's account of the lively social life she led in the capital. He sees at once that she has begun to move beyond him, and when she urges him to stop drinking, his response is revealing:
But Rita--if I repent and reform, what do I do when your influence is no longer here? What do I do when, in appalling sobriety, I watch you walk away and disappear, my influence gone for ever?
The second act traces the process foreseen here by Frank. Its steps are clearly marked: first Rita completes an essay that Frank ranks with the work of regular university students; then she begins to express ideas about poetry that contradict his; and eventually she begins arriving late to class, or skipping it altogether.
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The crisis in their relationship begins when, late for another class, Rita tells Frank that "it might be worth comin' here" if he were to stop drinking and to focus on important academic questions rather than on the details of her newly independent life. Stung by her rebelliousness, Frank gives her an unprecedented assignment: she is to present "a critical assessment of a lesser known English poet. Me." Now, instead of Frank judging Rita's work, she will be judging his--a decisive reversal in their situation.
When Rita arrives the following week full of enthusiasm for his poetry, Frank bitterly repudiates her praise, accusing her of admiring his work for all the wrong reasons. He condemns his verse as a "clever pyrotechnical pile of self-conscious allusion," and as a "worthless, talentless" waste of paper. In becoming educated, Rita has learned only to admire what is mannered and artificial, academic in the worst sense, and has lost the robust insight and spontaneous literary feeling she brought to his tutorials:
Found a culture, have you Rita? Found a better song to sing have you? No--you've found a different song, that's all--and on your lips it's shrill and hollow and tuneless.
Rita's rejoinder is equally sharp. She accuses Frank of squandering his talent in self-pity and drink, and confronts him with what she believes is the true sore point in their relationship:
What's up, Frank, don't y'like me now that the little girl's grown up, now that y' can no longer bounce me on daddy's knee an' watch me stare back in wide-eyed wonder at everything he has to say? I'm educated, I've got what you have an' y' don't like it . . .
Themes and Interpretations: Beyond a Simple Makeover
"Educating Rita" explores themes of social class, personal transformation, and the complexities of education. The film transcends a simple Pygmalion-esque narrative, delving into the challenges and consequences of changing one's identity and social standing. While some critics argue that the film simplifies Rita's transformation or that Frank's character is not fully developed, the central performances of Caine and Walters resonate with audiences, highlighting the emotional core of the story.
Some viewers perceive Frank's resentment towards Rita's growing independence, interpreting it as a commentary on male insecurity in the face of female empowerment. Others see Frank's trajectory as secondary to Rita's, emphasizing her liberation from societal expectations as the film's central focus.
Production and Reception: A British Gem Filmed in Dublin
Lewis Gilbert faced difficulties in securing finance for the film, eventually raising funds through a new company, Acorn Productions. Although set in an unnamed English university and port city, implied to be Liverpool due to the Scouse accents of the working-class characters, "Educating Rita" was filmed entirely in and around Dublin. Adjustments were made to suggest a UK setting, such as the inclusion of British red telephone boxes in street scenes. Trinity College, Dublin, served as the setting for the university, while University College Dublin in Belfield was used for Rita's summer school.
Variety magazine lauded Walters' interpretation of Rita as "[w]itty, down-to-earth, kind and loaded with common sense," portraying her as the antithesis of the stuffy academic world she seeks to infiltrate. Ian Nathan of Empire magazine called the film a "gem," praising Walters's "splendidly rich interpretation" and the "caustic brilliance of true intelligence" in her reactions to English literature.
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