"Career Girls"
                      A Film Review by
                     Linda Lopez McAlister
                      on "The Women's Show"
                     WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL
                        September 6, 1997

          British Director Mike Leigh has again come up with one of his
truly original and intensely interesting films (the last was "Secrets and
Lies").   The new film is called "Career Girls" and while it's certainly
offbeat, it's very enjoyable despite the fact that the main characters'
lives are out of kilter and filled with a great deal of frustration and
sadness.  They manage to carry on pretty cheerfully in spite of it all.
The story, briefly, is that of a friendship between two women, Hannah
(Katlin Cartlidge) and Annie (Lynda Steadman).  It's told in flashbacks as
Annie is visiting her  old friend and college roomate Hannah in London for
the first time since they parted, somewhat less than amicably, when they
finished college.  Naturally the reunion brings back memories for both of
them and so we are constantly switching between memories of them as
students in their early  20s in their student personas and six years later
when both have matured into still single career girls, Hannah still in
London while Annie has been living at home with her mother.

     What's important here is not the plot---they spend a weekend catching
up, going out to eat, looking at apartments because Hannah is thinking of
buying one--but the character studies.  We learn a great deal not only
about their young adulthood, but also about their family background and
childhoods.  We can see how they've changed since going "out into the
world" and how they've stayed the same.  We come to understand the fears
that influence who they are and what they do; sometimes they reveal them
directly, others remain unspoken and we're left to surmise them ourselves.
Of the latter variety seems to be a fear of homosexuality.  Even in their
college days it was clear that these two women loved each other but Annie
is too shy to admit it and Hannah too tough and they clearly think of
themselves as "straight" so they continue on having disastrous encounters
with various men (one of which turns out to be far more disastrous for the
man than for the woman).  When they reunite, the love is still there,
though they are at first very wary of one another.  And they have each
become less extreme than they were before.  Annie was painfully withdrawn
and shy and nervous when in school with her head always down, her face
broken out in a rash constantly and her body a mass of twitches.  Hannah
was caustic, with a biting humor and a bristling exterior that could
sometimes be devastatingly hurtful.  The moments of connection with Annie
are very subtle, as when she refers tp Annie and herself as "we," as a
unit as opposed to their third roommate, and when they decide to move to a
flat for just the two of them the next year.

     Now Annie seems to have
blossomed into a reasonably self-confident attractive woman who can look
you in the eye and hold her own.  Hannah, on the other hand, is at least
somewhat less verbally cutting and is able, with Annie, to reveal her
vulnerability and feelings.   In a moment of revalation she comes right
out and says that Annie is the only person in the world who ever
understood her, and we believe her.  Annie, on the other hand, reveals why
she has never come to visit before--she was afraid if she did, she'd never
go back home.

       So these are women in love with one another, and whose awareness
that a life lived together might be the most fulfilling one they could
find is beginning to dawn, but by the end of the weekend the thought still
remains unspoken.  But they do say that Annie will come again soon.

        If you like this kind of intense character study in films (acted
fantastically well) I'd advise you to come see this one at the Tampa
Theater this week.  But sit way down in front so you're not under the
balcony.  The English dialects are very hard to understand and if you're
beneath the overhang in the Tampa Theater the acoustics are lousy and
you'll have a hard time understanding the dialogue.


Copyright 1997.  All rights reserved.  Please do not copy or reproduce
this review without the written consent of the author: mcaliste@chuma.
cas.usf.edu