Lewis Gilbert

Rita, a young working-class woman in Liverpool, desperately wants an education. She enrolls in literature tutorials at a British university to escape from her dreary life as a hairdresser, as well as a confining existence at home with a husband who wants her to choose motherhood over education. Her professor is Frank Bryant, a disillusioned, alcoholic English professor who encourages his students to forsake dead poetry and enjoy life. As Rita is transformed...