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Shirley Valentine

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United Kingdom, United States · 1989
Rated R · 1h 48m
Director Lewis Gilbert
Starring Pauline Collins, Tom Conti, Julia McKenzie, Alison Steadman
Genre Romance, Comedy, Drama

Feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley Valentine craves for more. When her best friend wins a trip-for-two to Greece, Shirley begins to see the world, and herself, in a different light. In an unexpected discovery of herself, she quickly rekindles her childhood dreams and youthful love of life.

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What are critics saying?

40

Empire by

Middle-aged scouse housewives and Willy Russell is a bread and butter combination: no frills, a tad repetitive, but plenty of substance nonetheless.

50

Entertainment Weekly by Aubry D'Arminio

Talented actors stumbling through clichéd plot twists (Shirley’s nemeses actually envy her), flat one-liners (”Marriage is like the Middle East — there’s no solution”), and pithy self-affirmations (”I’ve fallen in love with the idea of living”) that undermine any genuine feminist sentiments.

30

The New York Times by Caryn James

Banality is precisely the problem with Shirley Valentine, the one-woman stage play that has been turned into a misguided, fully cast film.

80

Washington Post by Rita Kempley

A delightful, forgivably stagy adaptation of Willy Russell's one-woman play, it delivers a domestic engineer from drudgery and into the arms of an aging Greek stud.

25

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

If there is a shred of plausibility in the film, it comes from Bernard Hill's performance as Shirley Valentine's husband. He isn't a bad bloke, just a tired and indifferent one, and when he follows his wife to Greece at the end of the film there are a few moments so truthful that they show up the artifice of the rest.

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