Mature Themes
U.K. 2009
Directed by: Lone Scherfig Written by: Nick Hornby
Featuring: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina
Running Time: 95 minutes
Schoolgirl Jenny is 16 and a virgin. Sophisticated David is twice her age and ready to pounce. The time is 1961. The place is England just before it learned to swing. So begins An Education; a quiet miracle of a movie that quickly disabuses you of the idea that you’ve seen it all before.
Prepare to be wowed by Carey Mulligan, whose sensational, starmaking performance as Jenny ignited film festivals from Sundance to Toronto. The incandescent Mulligan, 24, is a major find who makes Jenny’s journey from gawky duckling to sad, graceful swan an unmissable event. As David, Peter Sarsgaard is shockingly good at walking the line between charming opportunist and sexual predator. This story about a girl is brilliantly adapted by About a Boy author Nick Hornby, who finds a timeless resonance in the battle between rigid, formal education and messy, carnal life.
An Education is remarkable for the traps it doesn’t fall into. Jenny, for all her naive impulses, isn’t a victim. She thrills to the concerts, jazz clubs and chic restaurants on David’s merry-go-round. She doesn’t see anything devious in David or his pals, dashing Danny (Dominic Cooper) and blonde goddess Helen (Rosamund Pike). They are everything glamorous that’s been out of her reach. At school, Jenny scandalizes the headmistress (an acid-tongued Emma Thompson) and presents David as a viable alternative to Oxford. It’s a teacher who pulls her up short: “You can do anything, Jenny, you’re clever and pretty. Is your boyfriend interested in the clever Jenny?”
The movie arranges an unsentimental education for both mismatched lovers, and there’s no denying the collateral damage. You won’t forget Mulligan’s haunted eyes. It’s a shame about the tidiness of the film’s wrap-up, but otherwise An Education earns its place at the head of the class.
Original review by: Peter Travers Rolling Stone - Extracted by: Gill Ireland