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Anita
and Me
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Release
Date: November 22nd 2002
Distributor: Icon Films
Certificate: 12A
Starring: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kathy Burke,
Mark Williams, Anna Brewster, Chandeep Uppal
Director: Metin
Huseyin
Running Time:
92
Minutes
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| The
“Me” of the title is a twelve-year-old Indian girl named Meena
(Uppal). She lives in the small mining village of Tollington, where her
parents have brought her in search of a better life. |
| Her
idyllic adolescence, surrounded by an eccentric group of friends and relatives,
is disrupted by the arrival in the village of Anita Rutter (Brewster) and
her mother (Kathy Burke). Anita is 14, blonde, beautiful and outrageous
- everything that Meena would like to be. Within a few weeks they're best
friends, and talking of their future together, but then the differences
between them and several unexpected events, including baby brothers, teenage
hormones and a posh grammar school, eventually force them apart. |
| Set
during the 1970s, the film was adapted by comic writer Meera Syal from her
first novel. Her story is wonderfully evocative of the seventies as it really
was, and unfortunately no story like this would be complete without mentioning
the racism that was prevalent in attitudes of the time. By subtly allowing
the subject to seep into the film through the characters’ dialogue
and actions, it becomes much more hard-hitting when it forcefully enters
the story. But overall the film features the same humour as the TV show
for which Syal is best known, “Goodness Gracious Me”, and ‘Anita
And Me’ turns into an hilarious story of growing up in the era of
flares, power cuts, glam rock, and decimalisation. |
| There
are also some excellent supporting performances, including Syal herself,
plus Sanjeev Bhaskar (who also worked on “Goodness Gracious Me”),
Kathy Burke and “The Fast Show's” Mark Williams. |
