Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Director: Alan Clarke
Writer: Andrea Dunbar
Based on: her own plays Rita, Sue and Bob Too and The Arbour
Cast: Michelle Holmes, Siobhan Finneran, George Costigan, Lesley Sharp, Kulvinder Ghir
Seen on: 27.1.2025

Content Note: domestic violence, sexual predation

Plot:
Rita (Siobhan Finneran) and Sue (Michelle Holmes) are best friends and do pretty much everything together. That includes babysitting for Bob (George Costigan) and Michelle (Lesley Sharp). When Bob comes on to them as he drives them home, they both accept his advances. Their arrangement doesn’t go so smoothly though, especially once Michelle finds out.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too has a lot of energy, a wonderfully non-judgmental look at Rita, Sue and their working class environment. I enjoyed it for the most part, even if I didn’t buy into the ending.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too is quite extra-ordinary in its lack of any lecture. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have anything to say. It is rather clear in its indictment of the lives Rita and Sue have to lead, their lack of options, their vulnerability. They are not naive, they know quite well that Bob is being a dick by coming on to them despite being married, much older and richer than them. But they are young and carefree and decide to go along because what else can they do, for fun or otherwise?

With this, the film affords them a lot more agency than you’d expect. And the sex scenes do their own heavy lifting in this: Once, Bob can’t get it up. More than once, the girls are bored with his sexual performance, and they let him know. It’s funny, and it gives them back power in an otherwise very skewed relationship. At the same time, it doesn’t lose sight of the fact that it is still fucked up for Bob to fuck two 15-year-olds.

Often, the film is more preoccupied with the relationship between Sue and Rita and what Bob does to that relationship instead of with the relationship between Bob and the girls. I really liked that part and Holmes and Finneran are such a dynamic duo of actors, they really sold their friendship and made it heartbreaking to watch them grow apart.

The ending, I think, tries to rectify this heartbreak a little, but the joke note it ends on with – SPOILER – Bob literally jumping back into bed with both Sue and Rita – fits neither the story nor the characters. And Bob just doesn’t deserve it. (From what I gather, the original plays end differently and Dunbar hated the movie ending as well.) Other than that, though, I found it quite entertaining.

Summarizing: good energy, good performances, crappy ending.