Career Girls – 1997 | 87 mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Mike Leigh’s follow-up to his Oscar nominated Secrets and Lies was this tender, funny and as ever poignant tale of two successful women meeting up and reminiscing about their more vulnerable past as student friends at a north London college.

The two former college roommates decide to meet when Annie (Lynda Steadman) comes down to London for the weekend, the initial unease of former friends gradually gives way to the return of original familiarity. Annie recalls her rampant eczema; and the in-your-face response Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) offered: “You look like you’ve tangoed with a cheese grater,” to her friend byway of sympathy. Through flashback we see them in college, Annie as the painfully shy girl scarred by severe dermatitis, Hannah as the confidant yet manic intellectual. Naturally both girls have changed since their student days of some six years earlier; the once moody roommates of yesteryear have been replaced by mature career girls of today As they socialise, go flat hunting, and bump into numerous people from their past, the girls start to reminisce upon their earlier friendship.