Movie Review by Bill Rendall

Career Girls

Having a script is usually a preliminary requirement for making a movie. Not so for the British director, Mike Leigh. He begins the movie making process by getting a group of actors together to improvise characters. When the characters have been developed to his satisfaction he then writes a story around them. Generally his characters are working class people far removed from Hollywood glamour.

Career Girls is a good example of his craft. The story centres around a weekend reunion of two women who shared a flat when they were university students.

Other Mike Leigh movies I have seen are set over a short space of time and only provide a snapshot of the characters in the movie. Career Girls uses a lot of flashbacks as the two women reminisce about their earlier time together. This enables us to see how their characters have developed over the years.

In their student days the women were both social misfits. One (Lynda Steadman) was timid and nervous and the other (Katrin Cartlidge) was prickly and tactless. Over the years they have both mellowed and become more conventional members of society. In the flashbacks to their student days we are introduced to a male friend who was also a social misfit. By an amazing coincidence the women bump into this man on their reunion weekend. We see that he is still a misfit and probably always will be.

Career Girls makes effective use of music by the Cure in the flashback scenes. The music helps sets the time period and I imagine the angst-ridden style of the Cure would appeal to the two women. Some of the movie score is provided by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who acted in Mike Leigh's earlier movie Secrets and Lies.

Career Girls is billed as a comedy but for the most part the comedy is subdued. The funniest part is an over the top performance by an uninhibited and apparently drug-soaked man trying to sell his apartment, and himself, to the women. I would mostly classify the movie as a poignant drama, although Cartlidge has a number of amusing lines.

Nothing much happens in this movie. If you like movies with strong story lines or with plenty of action then this is probably not a movie for you. However, if you like character-driven movies then this is a charming movie which you should see.

Director: Mike Leigh

Screenplay: Mike Leigh

Music: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Tony Remy

Declaration of possible bias: 

Other Mike Leigh movies have received more critical acclaim than Career Girls. However, his movies tend to have idiosyncratic characters and some really irritate me. I recommend Career Girls because I can identify with the main characters.

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