IDK abt SHIRLEY VALENTINE (1989)

I miss the days when everyone got their own theme song.

Right from the get, I wanted to moan about Pauline Collins—why she isn’t more celebrated, better known—having tea with the dames, as it were. But I don’t mean to posture—or pretend, anyway, that I’m so familiar with Collins’ body of work. Indeed, the only reason I know her at all is a COVID-era fluke—in which I started the seminal Upstairs, Downstairs (the original Gosford Park, Downton Abbey, et al.) to see what it was like, fully expecting a hazy BBC sound stage as dry as the pages of the old books it was emulating. But while it’s certainly hazy (some fifty years later!), I found it anything but dry: each episode is a phenomenal little stage play, with infinite care taken with costume and period detail, yes, but also the plots, the characters—the drama. And our point of entry (at least for the first series) is Pauline Collins, who plays the incorrigible Sarah, the newest maid to the Bellamy household, whose roughhewn manners are a consistent source of trouble for upstairs and downstairs alike. She’s got great big eyes and a squeak of a voice, which flattens into a bellow when she’s angry—a little much at first, but when she pulls up her blankets, and with a trembling lower lip, reflects on her impossible hopes and dreams—well! There’s nothing like it. It’s a skill she utilizes to perfection in Shirley Valentine (a skill that won her a Tony award for the original Broadway run), though unlike Sarah’s fire, Collins’ Shirley is an ember, a scorch mark, who wistfully skirts the edges of not just Liverpool, but her own life. The plot line’s nothing new: a downtrodden housewife surprises herself by seizing an all-inclusive trip to a Greek island, where she rediscovers her value outside of her family. And as a movie, I can’t say it’s even the best Eat, Pray, Love on the market. You see the bones of the original one woman show at every turn—sometimes successfully repurposed into film (the Mykonos bits in general), sometimes not (Shirley’s repeated asides to her imaginary confidante, “wall”). Characters that were clearly just comic anecdotes in the play feel a little garish in the flesh (shrill, red-faced, English)—with the exception of Tom Conti’s Costas, and what amounts to a comic cameo by Joanna Lumley. But there’s only one performance that really matters here—a performance that’s probably more important than the movie itself—and that, of course, is Pauline Collins’. In the film’s keystone monologue, Shirley sits by the sea, and peering into the sunset, reflects on the letdown of expectation—the time we lose to dreaming in lieu of doing, which even the most fantastic reality can’t make up for—and I have to admit I was an absolute wreck. Maybe that’s because I’ve had a rough week, or because I just traveled myself, and having peered at some unimaginable ruins, palazzos, and yes, sunsets, I, too, found myself wondering what’s it all about. Or maybe simply, it’s because Shirley Valentine is a top to bottom delight. It was the late queen’s favorite movie, after all—which might’ve been more endearing if it had meant a damehood for Collins, or at the very least, a seat at teatime.

NEXT TIME!