"Shirley Valentine" proves to be a very enjoyable movie, featuring characters who are complex and memorable. It works well in transitioning from its smaller stage origins into a full-fledged film experience. The story touches on similar ideas as “Educating Rita” (1983), and it’s just as effective revisiting those concepts. Both Rita and Shirley make for compelling figures; one is facing the possibility of being held back by life, while the other is already living through that same routine day after day. They are both women feeling constrained by their ordinary lives and yearning for something more in a world moving quickly around them. Each woman wants to discover what they’re capable of, having seriously considered how they've lived up to now and posed themselves the question: "Am I really doing what I want to?" And the answer they both arrive at is likely one that many people can relate to: “No.”

Source on TMDB