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Educating Rita (film)

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Educating Rita is a 1983 film about an alcoholic professor who has been hired by a working-class girl for higher education.

Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Written by Willy Russell, based on his play.
Sometimes students end up being the best teachers.  taglines

Dr. Frank Bryant

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  • Found a culture, have you Rita? Found a better song to sing? No, you found a different song to sing, and on your lips it's shrill and hollow and tuneless.
  • Did you know that Macbeth was a maggoty apple? Not many people know that!
  • In reply to the question "Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in a production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt", you have written, quote: "Do it on the radio." Unquote.

Susan "Rita" White

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  • I did join in the singing. But when I turned around, me mother had stopped singin', and she was cryin'. I said, 'Why are you cryin', Mother?' And she said, 'There must be better songs to sing than this.' And I thought, yeah - that's what I'm trying to do, isn't it? Sing a better song.
  • Christ! Me customer! She's still under the dryer. She only wanted a demi-wave, she'll come out lookin' like a friggin' muppet!
  • I'm beginning to find me. It's great. It is, you know, Frank. It might sound selfish, but all I want for the time being is what I'm finding inside me.

Dialogue

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Rita's Father: How old are you now, Susan?
Rita: [sarcastically] Seventy-four, Dad.
Rita's Father: You're not, you're twenty-seven! Been married six years and you still haven't got a baby to show for it. Here's your sister, only two minutes married, and she's already four months pregnant.
Rita's Father: Say, Denny. Denny, I'm sorry for you, lad. If she was a wife of mine I'd drown her.
Rita: If I was a wife of yours I'd drown meself.
Denny: Fellows in our family only have to look at a woman and she's pregnant.
Rita: Oh, must be because you're all cockeyed.
[Rita is being nosy about Frank's marriage]
Dr. Frank Bryant: We split up, Rita, because of poetry.
Rita: You what?
Frank: One day, my wife explained to me that, for the past fifteen years, my output as a poet had dealt entirely with the part of our lives in which we discovered each other.
Rita: Are you a poet?
Frank: Was. And so, to give me something new to write about, she left me. A very noble woman, my wife - she left me for the good of literature. And remarkably it worked.
Rita: What, you wrote a lot of good stuff, did ya?
Frank: No. I stopped writing altogether.
[Trish has just tried to kill herself; Rita goes to visit her in hospital]
Rita: Why?
Trish: Darling, why not?
Rita: Oh, Trish, don't. Come on, it's all right, don't cry. You're still here.
Trish: That's why I'm crying - it didn't work. It didn't bloody work.
Rita: Trish. Look, you didn't really mean to kill yourself. You were just...
Trish: Just what, darling? Poor Susan. You think you've got everything, don't you?
Rita: Trish, you have.
Trish: Oh yes. When I listen to poetry and music, then I can live. You see, darling, the rest of the time it's just me. And that's not enough.
Customer in Hairdressers: Was that a book you're reading?
Rita: Yeah, yeah.
Customer in Hairdressers: What's it called?
Rita: Oh, Of Human Bondage.
Customer in Hairdressers: Yeah? My husband's got a lot of books like that.
Rita: What, Somerset Maugham books?
Customer in Hairdressers: Nooo. Bondage books!
Frank: You really can't bear to spend a moment with me now, can you?
Rita: Frank, that is not true. It's just that tonight, I've got to go to the theatre.
Frank: As I was saying, if you want to stop coming...
Rita: Oh, for Christ's sake, Frank, I don't want to stop comin'! I've got to keep comin'. What about me exam?
Frank: Oh, I shouldn't worry about that. You'd, uh, sail through it anyway. You really don't have to put in the odd appearance out of sentimentality. I'd rather you spared me that.
[he downs a glass of whiskey]
Rita: If you could stop pouring that junk down your throat, in the hope that it'll make you feel like a poet, you might be able to talk about things that matter, instead of where I do and don't work. And it might actually be worth turnin' up.
Collins: Doctor Bryant, I don't think you're listening to me.
Frank: Mr. Collins, I don't think you're saying anything to me.
Collins: Doctor, are you drunk?
Frank: Drunk? Of course I'm drunk. You don't really expect me to teach this when I'm sober.
Collins: [angrily bundling his books together] Then you won't mind if I leave your tutorial.
Frank: Why should I mind?
Brian: Yes, well, apparently you were a little... drunk at your tutorial today.
Frank: No.
Brian: No?
Frank: No. I was a lot drunk.
Brian: Oh, Frank, why do you do it? When you've got... well, what haven't you got?
Frank: A drink at the moment.
[Frank has just been officially reprimanded for being drunk while giving a lecture]
Frank: Sod them, eh, Rita! Sod them!
Rita: Will they sack you?
Frank: Good God no. That would involve making a decision. Pissed is all right. To get the sack, it would have to be rape on a grand scale. And not just with students, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanor. No, for dismissal it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Bursar.
Rita: Do you think you did nothing for me? You think I just ended up with a load of quotes and empty phrases. Well, all right, I did. But that wasn't your doing. I was too hungry for it all. I didn't question anything. I wanted it all too much, so I wouldn't let it be questioned. Told you that I was stupid.
Frank: You're not stupid.
Rita: Listen, if I say I'm stupid, then I'm stupid, okay? So don't argue!
[Rita discovers Frank packing all his books into crates]
Rita: Have they sacked you?
Frank: Not quite.
Rita: Oh... Why are you packing your books up?
Frank: Well, I made rather a night of it last night, so they're, uh... they're giving me a holiday. Two years in Australia.
Rita: Did you bugger the Bursar?
Frank: Metaphorically.
Rita: I just... wanted to tell someone who'd understand.
Frank: Rita, I am honored that you chose me.
Frank: What does it say?
Rita: Right. I've passed. Now will you get on that bloody plane?
Frank: Let me see. You've passed with distinction. I'm proud of you, Rita.
Rita: I'm proud of both of us.

Taglines

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  • Sometimes students end up being the best teachers.
  • A comedy about a teacher and a very memorable student.

Cast

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