An Education is a true coming of age story set in 1960’s suburban England.  It’s about what happens when a 16 year old girl (Carey Mulligan) meets an older man (Peter Sarsgaard) who seems to be cultured, refined, and much more interesting than anything else in her life.  It’s based off of a single chapter of the memoir of Lynn Barber, a british journalist, with both the book and the chapter sharing the movie’s title.  The screenplay was written by novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) who has had several of his own books adapted for the screen and the film is directed by Lone Sherfig.  As of the time I am writing this An Education is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Carey Mulligan is nominated for Best Actress, and Nick Hornby is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

 

The first thing I have to say about this movie is simply “wow”.  I only heard positive things about this yet I expected to be bored to death.  Oh those silly expectations.  This movie was anything but boring and covers so much more than you’d expect.  Let’s start off with the relationship between Jenny (Carey Mulligan) and David (Peter Sarsgaard).  This entire relationship is just like watching a train wreck.  You can see that there is no way this ends positively and you just cringe as Jenny falls deeper and deeper into David’s world.  David of course isn’t the only one pulling her away from her teenage life.  His friends, an art lover played by Dominic Cooper and his girlfriend an airheaded but beautiful socialite played by Rosamund Pike, help to reinforce that David is this man who is living this life Jenny wants.  But even his friends who are alright with her being around initially start to become weary of the relationship and cracks start to show in David’s appearance.  David for his part is genuinely enamored with Jenny, and it’s actually hard not to be despite her youth.  She’s smart, cultured, and knows what she wants out of life, but is still just a teenager.  Carey Mulligan (herself actually being 24, 22 at the time of filming) portrays this balance so perfectly.

 

 

Then there’s Jenny’s parents played by Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour.  Her father wants nothing more than for Jenny to go to Oxford and is constantly pushing her towards that goal.  But David manages to dazzle her parents into things they ordinarily would never agree to, all the way to the end.  Almost blindly trusting their daughter with him.  This is one part of the film I have a complaint about.  Not the blind trust, which I felt was done well later in the movie, but the first meeting between David and the parents, the father especially, is so set against him but the second he meets him completely reverses himself without any reason.  It’s so abrupt.

 

 

Then of course there’s school.  Jenny is a good student, who starts becoming a not so good student as her relationship with David consumes her life. Small parts by Emma Thompson as the school’s headmistress and Olivia Williams (Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse) as the English teacher make up what are in my mind some of the finest scenes in the film.  These scenes are not entirely about throwing away or getting a school education, but a lot about feminism and especially a woman’s place in the world in the 1960’s and Jenny gives a taste of how things are changing.  We see more of this in the way Jenny’s parents treat her and David’s relationship.   Also the movie touches on class and race issues, really doing a superb job of bringing us into this world.

 

Further bringing us into this world is the wonderful soundtrack.  The movie makes incredible use of music to immerse us in the proper moods and settings.  I highly recommend heading over and buying the soundtrack on iTunes.

 

Overall this is a movie you must see. It’s still playing in some theaters and with it’s newly Oscar nominated status will probably be around for a little while longer. It also comes out on DVD and Blu-ray in March. You can pre-order through Amazon right now. I suggest you do. Also Amazon has the book on which this is all based on – An Education available as well.

 

You will not be disappointed in this movie. The ticket price (or dvd price) is worth is just for Carey Mulligan’s performance alone, not to mention the many other spot on performances along with an excellent script by Nick Hornby that manages to be both dramatic and funny and wonderful direction that brings it all together by Lone Sherfig.