Shirley Valentine (film) Shirley Valentine (film) Shirley Valentine is an award-winning 1989 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert. The screenplay by Willy Russell is based on his 1986 one-character play of the same title, which follows middle aged Shirley Valentine in an unexpected discovery of herself, and rekindling of her childhood dreams and youthful love of life. Pauline Collins reprises the titular lead role as middle-aged housewife Shirley, which she had previously played in the stage production in London's West End and on Broadway, and Tom Conti plays Costas Dimitriades, the owner of a Greek tavern with whom she has a
Title role not be fictional, such as Erin Brockovich in the film of the same name or Thomas More in the play "A Man for All Seasons" by Robert Bolt. The title character need not be named in the title, but may be referred to by some other word or phrase, such as Bilbo Baggins in "The Hobbit" or Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland". A title character may only be indirectly "described" in the title, as in "An Ideal Husband" by Oscar Wilde, where the 'ideal husband' (the title role) is the apparently perfect Sir Robert Chiltern. The title