Educating Rita (1983)

Hugely charming comedy-drama written by Willy Russell and directed by Lewis Gilbert. Rita a.k.a. Susan (Julie Walters) is a 26-year-old working-class Liverpudlian who begins an Open University course. Frank (Michael Caine) is her middle-aged tutor who feels jaded about his life and career, with a failing personal life and a drink problem. As they start to get to know each other by discussing literature, the pair begin to change each other in various ways. 

The storytelling is superb. It’s funny and poignant. The two leads are perfect in their roles and they have great chemistry together. When they are both on screen, there’s not a single misjudged moment, and every element either contributes to the development of the plot or deepens the extremely well-drawn characters.

The only aspect that seemed a little out of place was Maureen Lipman as Rita's Mahler-loving "bohemian" friend. She's funny, but seems almost a pantomime caricature. A pretentious student mentor would have better served the narrative.

There’s a superb semi-electronic soundtrack by David Hentschel, too.

It was interesting to see how much the respected film critic Robert Ebert got wrong about this film: "The movie stars Michael Caine as a British professor of literature and Julie Walters as the simple Cockney girl who comes to him for night-school lessons. She has problems: She is a working-class punk with an unimaginative husband." She's not a "Cockney" and she's not a "punk". 

Maybe it just doesn't translate to American audiences.