The Wealth of Knowledge - Educating Rita

Educating Rita is a film about a young woman who wants to obtain a formal education. Rita wants to live a different life. She is a twenty six year old hairdresser that has done nothing else with her life for herself. She decides that getting an education is the only way to live a different life. She does not necessarily want more money or a different job, but just knowledge in something like the arts or literature. She begins classes with Frank Bryant, an alcoholic who has lost all interest in the arts and literature and his passion for teaching. When Rita starts she tells Frank that she wants to find herself in her education. In the beginning of her education she has a lot of pressure. Her husband, Denny, wants a child, but she is not ready to take that step in their relationship. She tries to make him happy by telling him that she is off birth control, but is still secretly taking it. When Denny finds out that she is still on birth control he rips her books and papers apart saying they are putting unrealistic ideas into her head. He tells her to choose between their relationship or school. She chooses school because she likes the direction it is taking her. Throughout the movie Rita is faced with many new ideas that she must absorb and many difficulties that could stand in her way to receiving an education.

In the beginning of the film Rita tells Frank that her goal in receiving an education is to find something in herself. She already possesses an active imagination, a one of a kind personality, always changing emotions, and does not mind the simple pleasures of life. Yet for Rita this is not fulfilling enough. She wants to experience new and different cultures. When she divorces her husband she moves into an apartment with Trish. Trish is already a cultured young woman and has a lot to teach Rita. She introduces her to classical music, they read and discuss books, wear different clothes, and enjoy all sorts of entertainment. For Trish these are things she has experienced her entire life and they do not fulfill her life anymore. When Rita comes home one day she finds Trish on the floor having overdosed on sleeping pills. When Trish is recovering in the hospital Rita asks her why she tried to kill herself. Trish explains, "I always seemed alive when classical music was playing, or when poetry was being read. But whenever the music or the poetry stopped, there was just me and that was not enough." For Trish education and a cultured life were the only experience she had her entire life. It was beginning to be boring to her and non-entertaining. She did not have a personality or imagination like Rita and that stopped her from continuing on when there was no music or poetry. If she had started like Rita she may not have been so unhappy because she could have gone back to her roots and settled things out within