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Career Girls Details

1997 Certificate 15
  • Rated:
  • 60
  • from 1940 members

Director Mike Leigh follows up his Oscar-nominated SECRETS AND LIES with CAREER GIRLS, a bittersweet drama that deals with the passage of time between two friends. Annie (Lynda Steadman) and Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) were college roommates in London. Six years later, Annie is taking the train back into London to reunite with .. Read more

Starring Katrin Cartlidge, Lynda Steadman, Kate Byers, Mark Benton
Director Mike Leigh
Genres Drama

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Career Girls

Director Mike Leigh follows up his Oscar-nominated SECRETS AND LIES with CAREER GIRLS, a bittersweet drama that deals with the passage of time between two friends. Annie (Lynda Steadman) and Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) were college roommates in London. Six years later, Annie is taking the train back into London to reunite with her friend. The resulting connection sparks flashbacks from the past, where we learn that Annie was even more shy and defensive than she is currently. Helping to pull her out of her shell was Adrian (Joe Tucker), a fellow student who had an affair with both girls while they were still in school. While apartment hunting for Hannah, they bump into Adrian, who is now a real estate agent. Sadly, he doesn't remember either of them. The reunion also triggers memories of Ricky (Mark Benton), an overweight, self-conscious friend whose fragility seemed ready to cave him in at any moment. When Hannah and Annie track Ricky down, they find that he has only gotten worse and are forced to reevaluate their current lives and face up to their muddled discontentment. Steadman, Cartlidge, and Benton deliver subtle yet deeply engaging performances in CAREER GIRLS, another moving character study from acclaimed director Leigh.

Starring Katrin Cartlidge, Lynda Steadman, Kate Byers, Mark Benton, Andy Serkis, Joe Tucker, Michael Healy, Margo Stanley
Director Mike Leigh
Studio CINEMA CLUB
Run time DVD: 1 hr 23 mins
Certificate Certificate 15
Genres Drama
Language DVD: English
Subtitles DVD: None
Released DVD: 11 Feb 2002
Production year: 1997
Format DVD
  • Critics' reviews (6) of Career Girls

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  • 4 stars out of 5

    Mike Leigh isn't cinema's foremost realist, but he's definitely its most perceptive people watcher. The deceptively simple characters he favours inevitably reveal hidden depths that make them utterly fascinating. Here, arrogantly affected Katrin Cartlidge and twitchily timid Lynda Steadman are pretty resistible during the flashbacks to their college days. But they capture our sympathies during a series of low-key misadventures with three old friends and a thoroughly detestable newcomer, as they realise what frustrated mediocrities they have become. With its tentatively optimistic ending, this may be a small, rather safe film, yet it's also funny, touching and plausible.

    • Radio Times
  • 1 stars out of 4

    With a cast twitching away like contestants at a St Vitus's dance marathon, this is an intensely caricatured, unenlightening account of student life and its aftermath.

    • Halliwell's Film Guide
  • Most helpful member's review of Career Girls

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  • 9 out of 9 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 5 stars

    An English classic

    If the Brontes, Austin and their ilk have written classic English literature, then surely Mike Leigh deserves equal recogniton for his contribution to cinema.

    This film is funny, poignant, believable, entertaining and thoroughly English.

    Little things worth mentioning is a soundtrack of classic songs by The Cure, an early appearance from Andy Serkis now best known as Gollum in Lord Of The Rings and some great cinematography of England as it really is.

    The kind of film you want to ram down everyone's throat.

      • Ned0 from W.Yorks
  • Most recent members' review of Career Girls

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  • 3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 4 stars

    LIGHTHEARTED COMEDY

    GOOD FILM. I FOUND THIS TO BE LIGHTHEARTED,EASY LISTENING COMEDY.I LIKED THE PARTS WHERE IT WENT BACK IN TIME TO THERE STUDENT DAYS.

    WORTH A WATCH.

      • A customer from ESSEX,ENGLAND
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Rating breakdown

1,940 Member ratings
  • 100
134
  • 90
128
  • 80
339
  • 70
354
  • 60
395
  • 50
229
  • 40
139
  • 30
91
  • 20
87
  • 10
44

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    • Career Girls
      Director Mike Leigh follows up his Oscar-nominated SECRETS AND LIES with CAREER GIRLS, a bittersweet drama that deals with the passage of time between two friends. Annie (Lynda Steadman) and Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) were college roommates in London. Six years later, Annie is taking the train back ...