Shirley Valentine is an award-winning 1989 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert. The screenplay by Willy Russell is based on his 1986 one-character play of the same title, which follows middle aged Shirley Valentine in an unexpected discovery of herself, and rekindling of her childhood dreams and youthful love of life.
Pauline Collins reprises the titular lead role as middle-aged housewife Shirley, which she had previously played in the stage production in London's West End and on Broadway, and Tom Conti plays Costas Dimitriades, the owner of a Greek tavern with whom she has a holiday romance.
This is an amazing women’s movie. Although it was made in the eighties, Shirley Valentine should go down in history as one of the most spirited women in film.
Shirley talks to the wall in her small but contemporary English kitchen. It has become her companion, it is all she has. She and her husband no longer talk.
In the beginning the story sets up the exposition and back-story to her misery from her teens years on. As the story progresses, it makes you feel as if you too are a part of the story, as if you are in on it because she is communicating with you as well as the other characters (and the kitchen wall).
Shirley Valentine's name is symbolic because it is representative of the real self that she wants to be. It is representative of the self that she lost through the years, which she once was as a youth, before marriage, before children, back when she still had dreams and it is these dreams that she seek to find.
Shirley has the typical nosey, talkative neighbor, Gillian. Gillian has a little more money than Shirley and her husband. She is uppity and like a lot of people, makes Shirley feel intimidated, or more to the fact, just feel like escaping. Gillian shows Shirley though what Shirley does not want to be. A housewife stuck in the suburbs.
Shirley and Joe (her husband) have lost whatever they once had. They lost who they were by getting caught up in the day to day drudgery of their lives and there seems no way to get it back now that the children are grown. They face each other in the dreariness of the kitchen every evening at six o’clock for tea.
Shirley's children, Brian and Malandra, are loose and free spirited. Brian is a rebel poet, off doing his own thing, not wanting to live the life he has seen his parents live. He is not afraid to be different, to be himself. Malandra is also rebellious but in a more childish way. She follows her friends and the fads. She is rude and obnoxious to her mother; insensitive and typically selfish.
The actress starring as Shirley Valentine is Pauline Collins and her performance as Shirley is classic, hilarious, touching and strengthening. Her direct address to the audience lends a unique perspective that really pulls you into her story, into her character (known as an aside in theatre). Especially in the way she looks at you (the viewer) in the camera when she wanted to express her thought or feeling at the moment but cannot say anything for it would be rude to the other character(s).
Shirley finds the confidence to go to Greece with a woman with whom she is friends. She is just about to back out and is feeling bad because her daughter completely trashes the idea accusing her of going only to have pitiful middle-aged sex, but when neighbor Gillian shows up with a gift and words of encouragement for the trip, Shirley begins to pack her bags for the adventure of a lifetime. Shirley already knows that she does not want to live as Gillian does and Gillian's words to do this thing, to take this trip, give her the strength she needs.
The funniest scene is when it flashes back to her husband Joe, sitting at home in the kitchen talking to the wall because he had gotten on to her about talking to the wall and thought she was crazy because of it, but now he is the one alone and talking to the wall. The dishes are all piled in the sink while Shirley is off in Greece.
It would seem Malandra was right though because Shirley does meet a man in Greece, Costos. He was something she needed. He helped her to feel youthful, beautiful, sexy and desirable again. I'm not saying an affair is necessary in a marriage to reinstate those things but that's how it happened in Shirley's case. He is likeable though. I was disappointed that she had to overhear him hitting on a new woman later on but then realized it was good so that she does not stay in Greece because of him and is not tied to him emotionally or sexually thus leaving a possibility for her and Joe to be able to work it out.
Pauline Collins, at the time, a 42-year-old size 14, does two nude scenes but I thought it was great, we all tire of the typical Hollywood blonde sending the message that she and her perfect body are the only ones who can do it or that people would want to look at. I also thought both scenes greatly contributed to the point being made within; the confidence and spirit that she regained with Costos. And then the feeling of freedom, youthful freedom that she regained in the second scene, it was not about the skinny-dipping with a man, it was about her regaining the confidence to jump freely, nude, from the boat and to be as a child in the water.
Shirley remains in Greece because she knows that if she returns home, nothing will change, and the "new" that she is feeling will be lost again in the day to day drudgery and in Joe's attitude. Did she make the right decision? Yes. It gives her and her husband the chance at life again. I believe he was attracted to her again.
This film also shows that the lower classes thought that having what the upper class had would make them happy, but the upper class was unhappy too because they were envying the simplistic life of the lower class, and neither class were happy with what they had. It showed that happiness is not about having or not having---it is about being or not being.
The ending suggests that she and Joe regained what they had lost and renewed their relationship and their life and love, or at least have a chance at it. Hopefully they stayed a while in Greece at least, to re-explore themselves; maybe they stayed permanently, but most likely they returned to their home but with a fresh perspective on life and each other.
Shirley Valentine is a must-see. The beautiful Greek costal scenes are the icing on the cake.
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