Career Girls

Annie visits Hannah in London after six years apart. Across one weekend they run into old acquaintances, and the film moves between 1996 and 1986: the flat they shared at polytechnic, who they were then, and the distance since. Mike Leigh wrote and directed. Katrin Cartlidge plays Hannah and Lynda Steadman plays Annie. Its strength is how the flashbacks are built: as students both are twitchy, absurd and unguarded, and in the present it becomes clear that only one of them has learned to hide it. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 88 percent, with generally favourable Metacritic reviews. Todd McCarthy in Variety called it one of Leigh's most modest pictures and noted that it still offers quite a few laughs. Cartlidge won Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. It took 84,938 pounds on its opening UK weekend and around 3.1 million dollars worldwide. Who it is for: viewers who like Leigh's small, two-hander films. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for something to happen. It is one weekend and two women talking, and it never goes beyond that.