What It's About:

When married, working-class hairdresser Rita (Walters) decides to enroll in an adult-ed program at Open University, she chooses alcoholic English professor Frank Bryant (Caine)--whose wife has left him for a colleague--to be her tutor. As her confidence grows under Bryant's boozy, indiscreet instruction, an unlikely romance begins to blossom between teacher and student, one where the professor becomes the pupil.

Why I Love It:

Based on the stage play by Willy Russell, this buoyant, tartly funny drama of love, class, heartbreak, and literary aspiration retums "Alfie" director Lewis Gilbert with his ruffled, effortlessly charming star, Michael Caine. Walters, who earned an Oscar nod for her performance, is a delight as the coarse Cockney out to better herself (to the displeasure of her husband), but the movie succeeds brilliantly due to Caine's curmudgeonly turn as the dissolute, world-weary scholar in need of some personal discipline. School's out for most of us, but "Educating Rita" is a bittersweet crash course in life's poignant curriculum.