Career Girls

This simple comedy by British filmmaker Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies) concerns the reunion of two women friends from university days who try hard, although awkwardly, to rediscover their early closeness. They succeed beautifully and experience a series of chance encounters with old friends and lovers whom they once knew together. Katrin Cartlidge (Breaking the Waves) and Lynda Steadman are outstanding, playing their characters via flashback in their grungy, early 20s as well as their more polished, contemporary selves at age 30. Following the complex ambitions of Secrets and Lies, Career Girls almost looks like a holiday for Leigh, but it is no less the rich product of his now-famous process of symbiotic rehearsal and writing. The film is also graced by some of the most delicate passages of remembered love between two people seen in a long time. --Tom Keogh