Career Girls

Synopsis: Career girls opens with a train journey towards London's Kings Cross where Annie, one of the major characters is about to meet her old university friend Hannah. She recalls moving into a grotty student flat with Hannah in the mid-eighties. In those days Annie was self conscious and jumpy. The pair have not seen one another since graduation. They both now have moderately successful careers and are, at least on the surface, self assured in their new lives. However, they are still carrying a lot of emotional baggage from their university days. During the course of a weekend they rediscover their close friendship and encounter many faces from the past.
Genre: Drama
Director(s): Mike Leigh
Production: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
  3 wins & 5 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.2
Metacritic:
76
Rotten Tomatoes:
88%
R
Year:
1997
83 min
246 Views


- Oh, hello.

- Hello. Are you, uh, Hannah?

- It's "Han-nah," actually.

- Oh, right.

- And this is Claire.

- Oh, I-I'm Annie.

Oh. Do come in, Annie.

- Thank you.

- All right.

I was just giving Charlie his dinner.

Oh, sorry.

This is Charlie.

And I'm Charlie's aunt, as in "Aren't I,

Charlie?" You behave yourself.

Oh, bloody hell. She's on drugs.

- It's for me asthma.

- Oh, right.

- Do you mind if I smoke?

- No.

Oh, it's a bit kamikaze, isn't it?

- What course are you on?

- Psychology.

Oh, bloody hell.

I'd better get on the couch.

Psychoanalysis

hardly comes into it at all.

Psychology is actually the scientific study

of human behavior.

Oh, well, that's all right then,

'cause I'm a dirty rat.

You could study her.

- So you both do English then?

- Yeah.

- "To be or not to be?"

- "That is the question."

- A very good one.

- I know what you mean, yeah.

This is my favorite band... The Cure.

- Oh, it's hers as well.

- Really?

- No.

- So, uh...

- what do you think of the old place?

- Nice, yeah.

Thirty pound a week inclusive,

but I'm a bit worried 'cause...

what does "must have G.S.O.H." mean?

'Cause I don't know

if I've got one, you see.

Oh, right. Uh, that just means

a good sense of housekeeping, doesn't it?

Oh, right. Well, I have to do a lot of dusting

'cause of me allergies and that, so...

It means good sense of humor.

An analogy to dust.

Now, what could that be?

- God's dandruff, maybe?

- Is that eczema?

No, it's dermatitis.

Well, it's better than "determinitis,"

which is what I've got. Let's face it!

- Did you walk?

- No, I got a taxi.

Hello.

- Hello.

- All right.

- Come on in, Annie. Make yourself at home.

- B*tch!

- Pervert!

- She's been to see her mum.

Oh, right.

Never, never!

She's a f***ing b*tch!

I'm never f***ing going

there again! That's it!

- Oh, hiya.

- Hello.

You look so smart.

- Speak for yourself.

- Oh, yeah.

No, you do.

Let me take this.

No, it's all right.

It's really heavy.

- This is for you. It's, uh, nothing.

- You shouldn't have bothered.

- Come on. Let me take it.

- All right then.

- Did you get a cup of tea?

- Yeah, and a sarnie.

It's only one

and a half hours journey.

Uh, it's not much.

It's, uh, for your flat.

- Oh, you didn't need to. - Oh, it's

only a last-minute thing from Doncaster.

- The car's not very far, so...

- Oh. Is it on a meter?

- No, it's in the car park.

- Oh.

Oh, it feels strange, this.

- Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

- Mm. No, no, I mean London.

Oh, I see.

Has it changed much?

I don't know.

It has and it hasn't.

- Do you know what I mean?

- Yeah, I think so.

It all looks the same,

but... it feels different.

Stupid tosser.

- I'll tell you what is strange though.

- What?

- Seeing you driving.

- Well, it's the company car.

Oh, look at you!

I've got to drive me own jalopy.

You'll get one when

you're promoted, won't you?

I hope not to be there much longer.

Have you read this...

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront?

- Yeah, it's great, and her house is near my house.

- Is it?

- Yeah. I've been there.

- Have you?

- Yeah. Yorkshire.

- Oh, right.

- I've got a question.

- Come on then.

Ms. Bront, Ms. Bront...

who will I have sex with next?

It's a bit like the I Ching, isn't it?

Except you don't have to scratch it.

"Himself befo..."

- "Erecting himself before."

- Yes!

- Yes! Well, you'll be all right then, won't you?

- It's your turn.

- Let her have a go.

- No.

- Go on.

- Come on. Ask Emily your question.

Okay. Will I find a fellow soon?

No, you've got to say

"Ms. Bront" twice.

Oh, sorry.

Miss Bront...

- Ms. Bront. Ms. Bront.

- Oh, okay.

Uh, Ms. Bront, Ms. Bront, will I...

um, will I find a fellow soon?

Wait for it.

"Must come." Well!

At least he'll know what

to do with his index finger.

So, um, do you need, like,

special soap for your, uh...

- Yeah, sometimes, yeah.

- Is it catching?

- No.

- You do look like you've done the tango with a cheese grater.

If you don't mind my saying so.

Excuse me.

Yeah?

- Are you all right?

- Yeah.

- I was only pissin' about.

- I know, I know.

- Well, you gotta laugh, though, ain't ya?

- Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. Really.

- I'll see you in a bit then.

- Yeah.

What lovely houses.

Yeah, it's a nice, quiet street, isn't it?

Yeah.

Here we are.

I'm right at the top.

- Oh, a real garden.

- Yeah, that's the people downstairs.

Oh, I'm puffed out.

I'm really unfit.

Here we are.

Home, sweet home.

Welcome to my humble abode

and other domestic clichs.

Oh, it's lovely.

It's so bright and cheery.

I like the yellow.

It's still my favorite color, you know.

- Yeah, I painted it when I moved in.

- Primrose.

Looks like piss.

I've gone off it now.

Right. Let's put the kettle on.

Oh, what a gorgeous view!

Real surprise, huh?

Good morrow, Mr. Magpie.

Sorry. I'm so superstitious.

- You're allowed to be.

- That's daft, I know.

- Oh, a fax machine.

- Yeah, I need it for work, really.

- Oh, you've got everything.

- Well, I wouldn't say that.

Now, what would you like?

I've got ordinary tea, herbal teas...

or there's a filter coffee.

I'd like a coffee.

Do you mind?

No, not at all.

I'm having one.

Oh, what a great settee.

Is this from Habitat?

No, that's one of

my sister's castoffs, actually.

- It's a sofa bed.

- Oh, is it?

Why don't you sit down?

Let me take this. I'll open it later.

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Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) before honing his directing skills at East 15 Acting School and further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s his career moved between theatre work and making films for BBC Television, many of which were characterised by a gritty "kitchen sink realism" style. His well-known films include the comedy-dramas Life is Sweet (1990) and Career Girls (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film Topsy-Turvy (1999), and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing (2002). His most notable works are the black comedy-drama Naked (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA and Palme d'Or-winning drama Secrets & Lies (1996), the Golden Lion winning working-class drama Vera Drake (2004), and the Palme d'Or nominated biopic Mr. Turner (2014). Some of his notable stage plays include Smelling A Rat, It's A Great Big Shame, Greek Tragedy, Goose-Pimples, Ecstasy, and Abigail's Party.Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films." His aesthetic has been compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu. His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period." Coveney further noted Leigh's role in helping to create stars – Liz Smith in Hard Labour, Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party, Brenda Blethyn in Grown-Ups, Antony Sher in Goose-Pimples, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in Meantime, Jane Horrocks in Life is Sweet, David Thewlis in Naked—and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years—including Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Julie Walters – "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent." Ian Buruma, writing in The New York Review of Books in January 1994, noted: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other wholly original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo." more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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