MOVIE REVIEW : Pauline Collins Brings Her ‘Valentine’ to the Screen

Awfully smart of the adapters of “Shirley Valentine” (selected theaters) to hang on to big-eyed Pauline Collins, the authentic jewel in their gaudy crown. Without Collins’ waves of honesty, her enveloping warmth and the unhurried, confiding way about her delivery, we might well be left to wonder what all the fuss was about in this comedy-drama about a salty Liverpool housewife who, to her own astonishment, does something about the dead-end shape to her life.

In Liverpool and then London’s West End, Collins created Shirley Valentine and every other character in Willy Russell’s play, which at that time was a full evening’s entertainment with a single performer, the indefatigable Collins herself. After collecting England’s Olivier Award for her pains, she moved with the play to New York where she won a Tony and, from all accounts, Manhattanites’ hearts.

That was still no insurance that she’d be the one to make the movie, however. As film deals are put together these days, it’s a wonder that “Shirley Valentine” doesn’t star Goldie Hawn, Elizabeth Taylor or Shirley MacLaine--and that is without the slightest disrespect to the singular moxie of any of these women. But it would be as unthinkable as separating Judy Holliday from “Born Yesterday” or, for that matter, “Alfie” from Michael Caine.

So the powers that are--notably producer-director Lewis Gilbert and playwright-screenwriter Russell, the team behind “Educating Rita,” and executive producer John Dark--are owed a considerable debt of gratitude for letting Collins, who looks a bit like Joanna Cassidy’s unpretentious English cousin, re-create her personal triumph.

But honestly, Collins’ vehicle is a creaky old donkey cart. (Husband Joe, in unbelieving astonishment that supper isn’t on the table at 6 sharp one night: “You’re going ‘round the bend!” Shirley, with equanimity, “ ‘Ope so, I’ve always wanted to travel.”) It’s also been whittled down to something less of a tour de force now that each of her supporting characters is embodied by other actors, notably Tom Conti as Greek taverna owner Costas, Bernard Hill as her bluff “oppressor” Joe, and Joanna Lumley as her grade-school nemesis Marjorie.

Still, there is plenty left for Collins to get her back into. While frying up steak and eggs for husband Joe’s supper, and ruminating on her situation, 42-year old Shirley has the habit of chatting to her kitchen wall or, in other situations, to an Aegean rock. Then, with a roll of those enormous blue eyes, she lets us know she knows exactly how daft that may seem.

Soliloquy isn’t actually what feels baffling about “Shirley Valentine,” it’s timing. Are the English really just discovering that many women who hit 40 find their lives unrewarding, their kids unappreciative and their husbands selectively deaf? Or is it just in these well-manicured vehicle-plays, as carefully balanced as Pritikin to be titillating but not too salty, bold but not too brassy. You can agree with Shirley’s every complaint, and perhaps add a few of your own, and still feel an odd sense of time warp about these proceedings.

What separates Shirley from her masses of fellow-sufferers is her edge of self-knowledge and her bravery. When her best friend--now divorced--wins a two-week vacation in Greece and impulsively suggests that Shirley come too, the yearning Liverpudlian cooks two weeks of frozen dinners for Joe, sticks a note on her “Come to Sunny Greece” kitchen calendar and is off. Not without trepidation, or a sense of the giddy impossibility of it all, but truly, safely off. (Of course, the film makers have loaded the dice slightly by casting “Bellman and True’s” many-layered Hill as Joe.)

Being Shirley, she is able to appreciate everything she encounters: the quality of light, the unfamiliar food, the cautiously friendly Costas, reassuring her at every step of the propriety of his invitation to take her sightseeing around the island on his brother’s boat. (The film’s R rating comes primarily from Costas’ unbridled English, which savors one particular word too many times for the MPAA, and from fleeting nudity.)

And being no fools, Gilbert and Russell pull out every stop in sketching Shirley’s fellow-travelers. Her best buddy deserts her; her picky, boisterous Manchester hotel mates, Jeanette and Dougie, mortify her. (If you saw “Rita, Sue and Bob Too,” you’ll recognize George Costigan, the gap-toothed randy Bob, as this smotheringly friendly Dougie.)

Does Shirley find herself appreciated at last? You betcha. No one with any shred of soul could wish her any less. Alas, the film makers’ method of informing us of this is to have Costas’ boat rock tellingly at anchor, while the sea ebbs and flows onto the shore and climactic moments from “The Firebird” fill the sound track. And those are the moments that blight this film at every turn.

And still actress Collins prevails. Should she go back? Why should she go back? Why, indeed, shouldn’t she stay? None of this seems unimportant, in Collins’ hands.

Even when Shirley makes announcements--”I used to be the mother. I used to be the wife. Now I’m Shirley Valentine again”--you want to tuck your arm in hers, get her talking about other things and have a good long walk up that beach with her, in the setting Mediterranean sun.