Rita, Sue and Bob Too

Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alan Clarke
Screenplay by	Andrea Dunbar
Based on	Rita, Sue and Bob Too and The Arbour by Andrea Dunbar
Produced by	Oscar Lewenstein Sanford Lieberson
Starring	Michelle Holmes Siobhan Finneran George Costigan Lesley Sharp
Cinematography	Ivan Strasburg
Edited by	Steve Singleton
Music by	Michael Kamen
Production companies	British Screen Umbrella Entertainment
Distributed by	Film Four International
Release date	29 May 1987 (1987-05-29)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£993,000[1]

Rita, Sue and Bob Too is a 1987 British comedy-drama film directed by Alan Clarke and starring Michelle Holmes, Siobhan Finneran, George Costigan, and Lesley Sharp. Set in Bradford, West Yorkshire, the film is about two teenage schoolgirls who have a sexual affair with and are seduced by a married man.^[2] It was written by Andrea Dunbar, who adapted the film from two of her stage plays: Rita Sue and Bob Too (1982) and The Arbour (1980),^[3] which were first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The plays were loosely based on Dunbar's experiences growing up in the council housing at Buttershaw.^[4]

The strapline of the film was "Thatcher's Britain with her knickers down."^[3] It received a divisive reaction at the time of its release, but over time the film has become a cult hit for its depiction of working class life in Britain during the 1980s. In 2017, Rita, Sue and Bob Too was given a digital restoration by the British Film Institute.

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 middle class couple who live in a nicer part of town. One night while driving the girls home, Bob takes them to the Yorkshire moors where he complains to them about the lack of intimacy in his marriage. He then proposes to have sex with both girls. They happily agree, and an affair between the three of them begins.

Michelle begins to suspect her husband is having an affair due to his past infidelity and finding a packet of Durex condoms in his trousers. Bob denies having relations with either Sue or Rita, and the girls also try to assuage her suspicions. 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 to tell Michelle as expected, and Michelle gets Mavis to drive her to Rita's house. Michelle drags Rita out of her house and brings her along to confront Sue at her flat. Bob arrives at Sue's place at the same time, and an argument erupts between Michelle, Bob, Rita, Sue, and Sue's parents, causing a scene in front of all the neighbours. 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. Humiliated, Michelle goes home, angrily ransacks the house, and then leaves Bob for good, taking the children with her.

The next day, Rita informs Sue that although they only have two remaining weeks of school, she is dropping out 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.

To get over Bob, Sue starts dating Aslam, a Pakistani boy who is a driver for the local taxi firm she works at. Their budding relationship is hampered by Sue's father, who comes home from the pub drunk and shouts racist abuse at Aslam. After this incident, Sue leaves her home to move in with Aslam and his sister.

Sue later finds out that Rita has suffered a miscarriage and goes to visit 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.

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 unwanted. However, when Bob goes upstairs into the bedroom, he finds both girls waiting for him in bed, and he dives in to join them.

Playwright and screenwriter Andrea Dunbar based the story partly on her own life and on "two raucous girls she overheard in the ladies' toilet at Keighley Market".^[6][7]

Film locations in West Yorkshire included Buttershaw,^[8] where scenes of Rita's house, Sue's flat, the girls' school, and The Beacon pub on Reevy Road West from the very first scene were all shot.^[9][10] All of these buildings have now been demolished.^[8]

Other locations included Baildon Moor (Moorland scenes) and 5 Bramham Drive in Baildon (Bob's house); Alexandra Street (Aslam's house) and Leeds Road in Bradford (Sue's workplace Luna Radio Kars); Haworth (the school trip to the Brontë Parsonage);^[9] Woodhead Road in Bradford;^[8] and the Staveley Garages in Shipley.^[13]

Rita, Sue and Bob Too premiered to a divided response and controversy in its native country. Some Bradford residents felt offended by the film and thought it portrayed the area in a negative light.^[7][14][15] Writing in The Guardian, film critic Derek Malcolm gave the film a mostly positive review, stating that "Siobhan Finneran and Michelle Holmes play the girls with the kind of authenticity that precludes glamour in favour of guts and garters...".^[16] 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...".^[16] 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."^[16]

American media was largely positive.^{[17][18][19][20]} 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, which he described as "angry", "sometimes depressing", and "more interested in human nature than in selling lots of tickets with lots of sex."^[21] He wrote, "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".^[14] Variety called the film "a sad-funny comedy about sex and life in the Yorkshire city of Bradford".^[22] The Washington Post's Hal Hinson, however, expressed that the film needed to further examine the predatory nature of Bob's actions.^[23]

Screenwriter Andrea Dunbar disliked Alan Clarke's film adaptation, which changed the original ending in her play to be more upbeat, criticising: "You'd never go back with somebody who had betrayed you".^[4]

"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."^[24]

Nonetheless, the success of the film revived Dunbar's plays.^[4] The film has also amassed a cult following for its unblinking look at the working class in northern England, as well as for its 1980s style and fashions.^[7][15] Film Inquiry said "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."^[25][26] Starburst Magazine said that "At it's [sic] 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..."^[27]

The Film Magazine wrote of the film in 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."^[28] In 2024, Kate Muir of The Times called the film "a high-octane hit of comic teenage energy...[with a] mostly unspoken layer of social commentary".^[29]

Since 2017, until at least 2019, the Out Of Joint theatre company have been on tour with a production of the play.^[30]

In June 2019, Rita, Sue and Andrea Too was adapted for BBC Radio 4.^[31]

• Rita, Sue and Bob Too at Rotten Tomatoes
• Rita, Sue and Bob Too at IMDb
• Rita, Sue and Bob Too at Box Office Mojo
• Rita, Sue And Bob Too plot summary Screen Online (British Film Institute)
• Rita, Sue And Bob Too original 1987 trailer from British Film Institute via YouTube
• The making of Rita, Sue and Bob Too from British Film Institute via YouTube