Rita, Sue and Bob Too is a 1987 British comedy-drama film directed by Alan Clarke, set in Bradford, West Yorkshire about two teenage (15 year old) schoolgirls who "have a sexual affair with"/"are groomed and seduced by"[3] a married man.[4] It was adapted by Andrea Dunbar, based on two of her stage plays: Rita Sue and Bob Too (1982) and The Arbour (1980),[5] which was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London. The strapline of the film was "Thatcher's Britain with her knickers down."[5] "Andrea Dunbar, who wrote the play and the screenplay, had an affair with a married man, having sex with him in his car, along with her friend Eileen."[6]
Rita and Sue are two teenage girls in their final year of school who live on a run down council estate in Bradford, West Yorkshire. They babysit for Bob and Michelle, a better-off couple who live in a detached house in a nicer part of town. When the couple return later, Michelle pays the girls and tells Bob to give them a lift home. Bob, however, drives them to the Yorkshire moors, an out of the way place, and proposes to have sex with each of them on the reclined front passenger seat of his car. They agree, and he and by the time they are finished, it is 2:00a.m.
Sue has a part-time job at a local taxi firm, Luna Radio Kars, and meets Aslam, a Pakistani boy who drives for the firm. He and another driver make a £5 bet on who can get her into bed first, but Sue rebuffs them. At school, Bob shows up at Rita and Sue's PE tennis class to take them for sex. Rita manages to get permission from the teacher to use the toilet (a ruse to see Bob) but Sue is denied and told to get back to the class. Bob takes Rita to a show house on a newly built housing development to have sex.
Later, Michelle finds a packet of Durex condoms in Bob's trousers whilst ironing them and they argue. During the argument, it is revealed that Michelle does not like sex, which frustrates Bob. It also turns out that Bob previously had an affair, discovered when Michelle found another woman's bracelet in their bed; the other woman had also been their babysitter. Michelle goes upstairs to get ready for their planned night out, just as Rita and Sue arrive as they are again babysitting. Bob warns the girls that Michelle is suspicious and will ask them questions, but they convince Michelle that Bob is not sleeping with either of them.
After their night out, Bob and Michelle start arguing again, this time in front of Rita and Sue, who desperately try not to laugh. Michelle snaps at the girls, then storms off to bed. Rita and Sue make their own way home, unhappy that Bob cannot take them in his car and have sex with them again. That night, Michelle decides to let Bob have sex with her to stop him going off with other women, but it goes badly.
The next day, on a school trip, Sue gets into a fight with a classmate who calls her a "slag" because she is rumoured to be seeing a married man. Later, Rita and Sue meet Bob again for sex, but he cannot get an erection, embarrassing himself and leaving Rita and Sue unsatisfied. He takes them out to a club where Michelle's friend, Mavis, spots Bob with the girls. Bob warns the girls that Mavis will surely tell Michelle that she saw them together.
The next day, Mavis rushes around to tell Michelle as expected, and Michelle gets Mavis to drive her to Rita's house. Michelle drags Rita out of her house and into Mavis's car and takes her to Sue's flat to confront them both, with Bob arriving there at the same time. Michelle, Bob, Rita, Sue, and Sue's parents have a big argument in the street, causing a scene in front of all the neighbours. Michelle blames the girls for being slutty, but Sue retorts that the reason Bob cheats on her is because she does not have enough sex with him, which infuriates Michelle even more. After everybody blames each other and Bob and Sue's drunken father almost come to blows, Rita's brothers come to rescue her on their motorbikes. Michelle goes home humiliated, ransacks the house, and then leaves Bob for good, taking the children with her.
The next day, Sue goes to Rita's house to walk to school together. Rita tells her that she is no longer going, even though they are due to leave school in two weeks, because she is pregnant with Bob's child. She admits to having seen Bob a few times without Sue, and says she is moving in with him now that Michelle has left him. When Bob arrives to collect Rita, Sue is enraged and tells them both to get lost.
Sue starts dating Aslam as a rebound to get over Bob. As they grow closer, Sue even brings him to her home. However, her father comes home from the pub drunk and shouts racist abuse at Aslam, causing Sue to leave home and move in with Aslam and his sister.
Some time later, Sue finds out that Rita has suffered a miscarriage, and visits her in hospital. On the way out, Bob invites Sue for another sexual escapade, but she rebuffs him. He still gives Sue a lift home, but Aslam sees her getting out of Bob's car and threatens her, as he thinks that she was out having sex with Bob.
While Bob and Rita are about to have sex at their house, Bob accidentally calls out Sue's name. This infuriates Rita, who assumes Bob is now seeing Sue behind her back. She storms out of the house and goes to confront Sue. When Rita tells Aslam of her suspicions, Aslam violently attacks Sue. Despite everything, Rita comes to Sue's defence and kicks Aslam in the knee. Sue then kicks him in his groin, before they both make a hasty escape. They go to Bob's house, where Rita tends to Sue's wounds, but Aslam shows up at the front door. They refuse to let him in, but Aslam tries to find a way to break in, all the while trying to convince Sue to come back to him. The situation is interrupted by the arrival of the police, having been called by a neighbour. Aslam then runs off, with the police in pursuit.
Film-only "Happy Ending" When Bob returns home, Rita tells him that she is letting Sue move in with them, regardless of Bob's wishes. The two girls then go upstairs, leaving Bob feeling like a guest in his own home. However, when Bob goes upstairs into the bedroom, he finds both girls waiting for him in bed, and dives in to join them.
"Rita, Sue and Bob Too, in which a married man lures his teenage babysitters into a casual love triangle, was partly inspired by her (Andrea Dunbar) own life and partly by two raucous girls she overheard in the ladies' toilet at Keighley Market."[7]
Filming locations
The Beacon pub, Reevy Road West, Buttershaw, March 2012
Some of the filming locations[11][12][13] around West Yorkshire include:
Buttershaw[14] – Rita's house; Sue's flat; the school; The Beacon pub on Reevy Road West from the very first scene.[15]
The filmed female characters' (15 and 15) hair styles are mullets, the poster show the actresses in other hair styles and costumes, looking much older (20 and 21), while the male character (40), in the poster, is shown to be younger.[17][18][19]
Andrea Dunbar, who wrote the screenplay, hated Alan Clarke's film adaptation, who cannily gave it an upbeat ending, criticising: "You'd never go back with somebody who had betrayed you".[6] The film, "a bit Carry On Up the Council Estate", was successful, reviving the play.[6]
"In the play, Rita winds up having a baby and marrying Bob. Her friendship with Sue falls apart, though she names her daughter after her. At the very end, Sue’s mother and Bob’s ex wife come together in solidarity, the former declaring: “All fellas do the dirty on you sometime or other. Only let them come on your conditions and stick to them. Don’t let them mess you around.” But the film ends differently – with a kind of punch line, though it is unclear whom the joke’s on. In the final scene, Bob literally jumps back into bed with both Rita and Sue."[20]
Writing in The Guardian, film critic Derek Malcolm gave the film a mostly positive review, praising all of the main cast as "excellent", and stated that "Siobhan Finneran and Michelle Holmes play the girls with the kind of authenticity that precludes glamour in favour of guts and garters...". He also praised director Alan Clarke's ability to "energise the whole thing with ace professionalism, just occasionally seeing the funny side of what is essentially a sad story...". He goes on to say that the film avoids sentimentality but lacks something; "[the film] wipes the comfort from the face of a lot of dimly perceived and sloppy notions, but it replaces those notions with nothing."[21]
The film gained a mostly positive reception from critics in the US.[22][23][24][25][26]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 3 out of 4 stars, and having watched it twice noted that some audiences were uneasy at its mixed tone, calling it "angry", "sometimes depressing", and "more interested in human nature than in selling lots of tickets with lots of sex."[27] "The movie challenges us to disapprove of the conditions that produced Rita and Sue, rather than to take a safe, superficial stand against that rascal Bob, but here I am lecturing, and the curious thing about Rita, Sue and Bob Too is that it does not lecture and contains no speeches".[28]
The Times (July 2024): "...a high-octane hit of comic teenage energy...mostly unspoken layer of social commentary..."[29]
Film Inquiry (May 2017): "It contains no real plot, to speak of, essentially riding the beats of any story that deals with extra-marital affairs. But it is in the treatment of the people it follows that the film scores a hat trick."[30]
Cinephilia (?): "At it’s heart, though, there is a refreshingly frank and honest, not to mention amusingly real representation of how awkward and believable the reality of sexual experiences can be, although you sense these two girls are more savvy about their knowledge than at first glance."[31]
Variety (January 1987): "a sad-funny comedy about sex and life in the Yorkshire city of Bradford"[32]
Starburst Magazine (October 2017): "At it's heart, though, there is a refreshingly frank and honest, not to mention amusingly real representation of how awkward and believable the reality of sexual experiences can be, although you sense these two girls are more savvy about their knowledge than at first glance."[33]
The Film Magazine (April 2020): "Mostly it's the humour that keeps Rita, Sue and Bob Too from becoming sordid – the sex in the film truly is the least sexy sex of all time. In one scene, Rita shouts "It's like a frozen sausage" and complains that she’s bored. Although clearly morally wrong, the humour passes off the issue of a (supposedly) 26 year old married man sleeping with two 15 year old school children as something that just seems to happen for children of such backgrounds, the comedy pierced by a sadness that haunts the film for its entire runtime."[34]
Adaptations
Since 2017, until at least 2019, the Out Of Joint theatre company have been on tour with a production of the play.[35]
In June 2019, Rita, Sue and Andrea Too was adapted for BBC Radio 4.[36]
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↑ Muir, Kate (19 July 2024). "Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)". The Times. Retrieved 19 July 2024. As a high-octane hit of comic teenage energy, mostly of the sexual sort, it remains groundbreaking, but the setting in Bradford's decrepit Buttershaw council estate adds a significant, if mostly unspoken layer of social commentary. Rita and Sue are raunchy, cheeky, unstoppable schoolgirls, played with relish by Siobhan Finneran and Michelle Holmes.
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