The 1983 film Educating Rita, written by Willy Russell and starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters, is one of the finest stories ever told.
Julie's character is the eponymous working class hairdresser and Michael Caine plays Professor Frank Bryant her Open University tutor assigned, against his will, to teach her English literature. The dialogue is brilliant and funny but it is the dilemma of an awakening Rita caught between two worlds that is deeply moving.
The more Rita learns the more aware she becomes of the emptiness of her life. She is unsatisfied with the limited ambitions of her husband Denny and their extended families. At the same time she knows she does not belong in the middle class intellectual world she aspires to.
There is a scene that affected me profoundly when I watched it during the period that I was 'awake' to the Watchtower but still socially a JW. Rita accepts an invitation to a drinks party at Bryant's house. She arrives late feeling uncomfortable with her dress and her choice of wine. She leaves and joins her family at the pub where they are singing along to the jukebox - 'I'm so happy that you're so happy that we're so happy...together..'
Her sense of disconnection is palpable. She looks at her mum who is silently crying. Rita asks her mum what's wrong and she answers, 'There must be better songs to sing than this.' It's an incredibly profound scene.
If you are caught between two worlds don't give up and retreat to the comfort of the familiar. It will be painful and bewildering but a world with bigger horizons is out there. There are better songs to sing.