40
Middle-aged scouse housewives and Willy Russell is a bread and butter combination: no frills, a tad repetitive, but plenty of substance nonetheless.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
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.
70
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
A delightful script and an equally delightful performance by Collins.
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.
50
Los Angeles Times by Sheila Benson
But honestly, Collins' vehicle is a creaky old donkey cart. [30 Aug 1989, p.C1]