“I don’t want to teach you,” Michael Caine, a rumpled, alcoholic professor tells Rita (Julie Walters), a hairdresser who wants him to tutor her in literature. When she first comes to him, Rita has a thirst for knowledge and a conviction that learning is an adventure that will broaden and deepen her as a person.

The drama charts the interesting changes that Rita and her professor effect in each other. Their relationship never goes beyond a platonic affection for each other, even though her marriage to a working class rube ends and Caine’s affair with a fellow academic dissolves. Educating Rita manages in its own quaint way to be both edifying and entertaining. Directed by Lewis Gilbert, the film is based on a London play by Willy Russell.