Lewis Gilbert
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Information about the director.
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Lewis Gilbert
British actress Pauline Collins repeats her stage success as the character Shirley Valentine, a married woman who decides in her middle years that she wants more out of life. Leaving her spouse behind, she heads to Greece, where she grows close to a low-key, local bloke (Tom Conti). Collins and director Lewis Gilbert (Educating Rita) choose to let the character, as she did in the play, speak directly to the audience at times, and the gamble works in terms of creating a gentle, intimate atmosphere. Conti is a bonus, a warm presence and funny to boot. —Tom Keogh
Lewis Gilbert
Michael Caine and the knockout Julie Walters deliver a pair of wonderful performances in this endearingly bittersweet tale of a boozily burnt-out professor’s tutoring of (and subsequent tutoring by) a free-spirited cockney hairdresser determined to improve her lot in life. The basic plot won’t exactly surprise anyone who’s ever seen a movie before, but the ace cast (particularly Caine, who’s rarely this subtle) continually finds new directions to spin off from the rather rote path. Although the end result is perhaps just a little too convinced of its own…
