Wonkette Movie Night: Shirley Valentine

'It sounds as if it could be a name. "Oh, hiya ClitORis. How are you?" Why not? Plenty of men walking round called Dick.'

Who wants to go to Greece?

I say we join Shirley on her journey, a 42 year old woman in a loveless marriage and unsatisfying life where she spends time talking to the wall. But she still has dreams.

I’d like to drink a glass of wine in a country where the grape is grown. Sitting by the sea and just sipping wine and watching the sun go down.

When the opportunity to make that dream comes true, Shirley is conflicted. Her best friend has won a trip for two to Greece and she is taking Shirley with her. But as Shirley breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to us, she wonders if it is just too late for her to pursue that dream.

I think many of us have had the experience of really wanting to do some special thing and when the thing actually happens we hesitate, because then the thing is no longer a dream and dreams can be perfect while real life on the other hand…

Shirley puts her fears and doubts behind her after a neighbor tells her that she herself wishes she could be so brave as to take off on an adventure as Shirley was about to do. So Shirley grabs her bags, slaps a yellow post-it on a poster of Greece informing her husband that she was going to be gone for 2 weeks, and heads to the airport.

Shirley and her best friend Jane arrive on a small Greek island and immediately Jane takes off with a man she met on the plane. Shirley decides she will find her own little spot and just relax. On a stroll along the beach she finds a small bar owned by Costas, with a thick accent and even thicker moustache, Costas invites Shirley on a boat ride. Insisting that he is not trying to make fuck with her, that this is just a boat ride. Just boat, no fuck.

But Shirley is not the one saying no fuck. Costas and her spend a lovely day in the boat with wine and cheese and some skinny dipping. Then they get the boat to rocking as Shirley lets herself be free to enjoy life.

Spoilers ahead.

Shirley is falling in love but it is not necessarily Costas that has captured her heart. Meanwhile her husband has realized how much he misses her. He is calling her, expecting her to come back to him. But she is not going back to her old life. She has fallen in love with herself and is going to do what she wants to do.

Earlier in the film Shirley says,

I have allowed myself to lead this little life, when inside me there was so much more. And it's all gone unused. And now it never will be. Why do we get all this life if we don't ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if we don't ever use them?

She had decided she was going to use all the feelings and dreams and hopes. Shirley was now going to live a big life and no longer allow others to take any of it away from her. And maybe the man she had fallen in love with before he became her husband might just join her in that journey. When he goes to Greece to find her, he walks by a woman he no longer recognizes. His eyes are opened to the woman Shirley always was and the woman she was yet to be as they sip wine by the sea at sunset.

Shirley Valentine is available for free on YouTube. $3.99 in the usual places.

Shirley Valentine stars Pauline Collins, Tom Conti, Alison Steadman, Joanna Lumley, Bernard Hill, Julia McKenzie, and Tracie Bennett. Directed by Lewis Gilbert.

To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.

The animated short is Le Château de la Souris from Sketchy Squirrel.

Our next Movie Night selection is Mozart and The Whale, it is available with subscription on Prime. Free with ads on Pluto TV, The Roku Channel and Plex.