Director and writer Mike Leigh wrapped up filming Career Girls (1997) just a few days shy of winning the Palme d'Or for his film Secrets & Lies (1996) at the Cannes International Film Festival. That film would go on to great critical acclaim and five Academy Award nominations. There were big hopes that Leigh's follow-up would live up to his previous success. Career Girls fit into what Leigh referred to as his "family of films". Leigh was fascinated with ordinary people leading ordinary lives and many of his characters were simple British working-class people dealing with relationships, change and the passage of time. In an interview, Leigh said that the essence of his stories was about "the way people change and the ways they remain the same." However, Leigh believed in challenging himself to create films that were different from his previous projects.

Leigh's approach to filmmaking is nothing if not unique. He was greatly influenced by, and is often compared to, Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu who was known for simplicity and realism. Tapping into his extensive background working in the theater, Leigh believed strongly that his actors should be involved in character development. Improvisation, discussion and rehearsal would help fine tune the characters, create detailed backstories for each and allow the actors to breathe life into their roles by adding their own unique spin. When shooting began there was only a concept and no script. Leigh would work with his team to develop the scenes and would not reveal the fate of his characters to his cast to maintain that sense of realism.

The idea for Career Girls came from Leigh's work on Secrets & Lies. Leigh reflected on his filmmaking process and the development of both character and story. He wanted to eschew the conventional chronology and use that rich material--the history behind the characters that the cast had spent so much time developing--and incorporate that into the story. Career Girls stars Katrin Cartlidge as Hannah and Lynda Steadman as Annie, two 30-somethings who have drifted apart and are reunited 10 years after they first met in college. The film is told through a series of flashbacks as we see their initially volatile acquaintance blossom into a tender friendship. Hannah is brash, intense and insecure. Annie is vulnerable, sensitive and fearful. As the story alternates between their new lives as career women and their early college days of drinking, drugs, sex and discovering their true selves, Leigh develops a very intimate portrait of two women who have grown yet still remain very much the same. The term "career girl" is a British phrase from the 1980s. According to Cartlidge, "it was all about the idea that women should go out there and be as brutal, ambitious and single-minded as men, without having babies." Leigh also uses this term ironically as the two women still lack a sense of fulfillment in their lives.

Career Girls was one of several films that Mike Leigh made with his business partner producer Simon Channing-Williams for their production company, Thin Man Films. It was made on a smaller budget and tighter schedule than their previous projects. Cartlidge had worked with Leigh on Naked (1993) and Steadman was a relative newcomer with Career Girls marking her feature film debut. To prepare for their roles, the two leads spent time studying campus culture. Cartlidge, who never went to college, spent time on a college campus observing students, and Steadman tapped into her own college memories and the awkwardness of class reunions. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Cartlidge said, "our job, as actors, is to be as in-depth, as detailed and as knowledgeable about our characters as is humanly possible. What the audience is left to guess at, we as actors have to know." Among the other cast members are a trio of actors who play the story's central male archetypes. Mark Benton plays Ricky, the socially inept psychology student who falls in love with Annie only to be deeply hurt by her rejection. The two misogynistic characters are played by Andy Serkis, in an early supporting role before his blockbuster franchise fame, and Joe Tucker.

Released in 1997, Career Girls screened privately at the Cannes International Film Festival and then went on to a modest round on the festival circuit. The film received mixed reviews. Some critics felt the storytelling technique and the series of coincidences in the plot to be contrived. There was some resistance to the physical gestures and tics Cartlidge, Steadman and Benton used on screen. Other critics noted that Leigh's film was a letdown after the success of Secrets & Lies. However, the film was praised by various critics who felt that it stayed true to Leigh's vision and that it rejected Hollywood convention for realism. An Entertainment Weekly review reads, "the effort yields a rewarding take on the resiliency and therapeutic importance of friendship." Katrin Cartlidge received the most praise for her performance as the outspoken Hannah. She received various nominations and won best actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. Cartlidge tragically died a few years later at the age of 41. Shortly after her untimely death, her family started the Katrin Cartlidge Foundation to support emerging filmmakers. Leigh noted that Cartlidge was a brilliant character actress and brought much of her own unique spirit to the film.

By Raquel Stecher