Reviews

'Educating Rita' is one of those films that, unfortunately, most people will never see. A lack of recognition in Britain is most likely to blame, along with the audacity to step outside the typical idea of British-films-made-for-the-US. If you do get the chance to see this film, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

It's a film that will certainly pull at your heartstrings, but never actually gets soppy or acknowledges what the audience feels. The two leads, (played brilliantly by Michael Caine and Julie Walters) are both trapped within two very different worlds. Walters - as hairdresser/student Susan/Rita - is suffering a life of bland working-class domesticity in 1980s Liverpool, unwilling to have a child until she better understands herself. Caine - as university professor Frank - is disillusioned with the academic life, surrounded by pretentious students and constantly dependent on alcohol to see him through the day. This could so easily have been turned into a cheesy love-fest, in which both characters fall head over heels for each other and face their troubles neatly and quickly in order to dash off into a new life together. Thankfully, Willy Russell is made of stronger stuff and delivers a story that is witty, clever and poignant without ever going cold.

BBC1's 'The Lost Prince' is one of the best television dramas that the channel has shown for a long time. The story of King George V's youngest son, Johnnie, the programme explores the boy's learning difficulties and his autism-related problems, as well as the horrors of war as seen through the eyes of the Royal family.

Those are the facts, but the drama is so much more than a re-telling of a royal story. Moments of poignancy, such as Johnnie's frank but heartbreaking honesty with his parents, are touching without becoming schmaltzy or obvious, and the harsh burden of the First World War on the British keeps the drama well within reality.

Good performances all around, particularly from Miranda Richardson as Queen Mary and Tom Hollander as King George, who invoke sympathy from their seemingly impassive facades. Bill Nighy is excellent as the King's adviser, Stamfordham, and the children - especially Rollo Weeks -are more than capable of carrying such a difficult and weighty subject.

This film may not have won any Oscars, but it's an honest, gentle film about the life of one of the 20th century's greatest cinema icons. Jennifer Love Hewitt bears very little physical resemblance to Audrey, but she makes up for it with an enthusiastic and often surprisingly good performance. The supporting cast are generally good, and the script is neither sentimental nor soppy when it easily could have been. Any biopic of such a wonderful woman is bound to be flawed in places, but I think that this one has done the best job possible with her life story.