Career Girls

UK, 1997. Directed by Mike Leigh. Katrin Cartlidge, Lynda Steadman, Kate Byers, Mark Benton.

Not the pinnacle of Mike Leigh's work, but nevertheless a neat character study of two friends meeting up again after six years. Told partly in flashback and partly in the present day, the film pieces together the relationship of the two young women who share a flat in their student days and become friends, despite an unpromising first meeting. There is little plot, the emphasis being on what the characters say to each other rather than what they do. Beautifully acted by Cartlidge and Steadman, with Mark Benton turning in a nicely-judged performance as the tragi-comic Ricky, fellow student and social misfit. A small film, but one well worth watching.