Anita and Me

Starring: Kabir Bedi, Max Beesley Director: Metin Hseyin Original UK Premiere: 2002 Dvd Release: 26th May, 2003 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding

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Anita & Me is Meera Syal s debut novel & was first published in 1996. It is a semi- autobiographical novel which has won the Betty Trask Award. The story revolves around Meena & her relationship with Anita as they grow up in the fictional Midlands village of Tollington in the 1970s. It is set as a GCSE English literature set text for the examination year 2005, as it was for the 2004 year. It was made into a film of the same name in 2002, in which Meera Syal appears as Meenas Auntie Shaila. Syal also wrote the screenplay for the film. Rocío G Myths of Childhood in Meera Syals Anita & Me, in Fernando Galván & Mercedes Bengoechea, On Writing Race in Contemporary Britain, Universidad de Alcalá 1999, 139-46. Graeme Dunphy, Meenas Mockingbird. From Harper Lee to Meera Syal, in Neophilologus 88, 2004, 637-59. Anita & Me at The Internet Movie Database.

Anita & Me is the film of Meera Syals novel about growing up in the Black Country in the early 1970s. Syal appears in the film, playing a somewhat terrifying aunt, & most of the cast will be just as familiar to anyone who has watched many BBC comedies: it also features Sanjeev Bhaskar , Mark Williams & Kathy Burke . Unfortunately their combined efforts are not quite enough to make Anita & Me more than mediocre.

Ironically the most glaring problem is with the respectable turn-out of comic acting talent, all of whom over-act mercilessly throughout. This may have been an effort to compensate for the stock nature of many of the characters: Bhaskars ambitious Indian immigrant father, Williams hippy vicar, Burkes lippy fishwife. The films central relationship between an awkward adolescent Indian girl called Meena & her slightly older English neighbour Anita is rather better handled by the two young actors concerned, but there is nothing here that wasnt done a great deal better in the thematically similar East is East.

Max Beesley is a British actor. Beesley first came to prominence with his first major acting role in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, a 1997 television mini series based on the book of the same name. He has starred in numerous roles both in the United Kingdom & the United States since this breakout role. In 2001, Beesley appeared opposite singer Mariah Carey in the film Glitter, a critical & commercial failure for which he was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor. In Britain, he is best known as the star of the BBC3 medical drama Bodies, which was first broadcast in 2004. He currently stars in the BBC1 series Hotel Babylon. Max Beesley is also a notable musician, having had a sucessful career before becoming an actor. He has performed in concert as a percussionist for Robbie Williams & Take That. Max Beesley at the Internet Movie Database. Posters Of The Last Minute

Editors Choice: Glitter, Anita And Me, The Last Minute, It Was An Accident, The Match, The History Of Tom Jones A Foundling, View DVDology

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