Review: An Education

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An Education

The premise of An Education sounds icky, quite frankly: an older man dating a high-school girl with the permission of her parents. Even in the Sixties ... creepy. Distasteful. But when the older man is Peter Sarsgaard, the young woman is Carey Mulligan, and the screenwriter is Nick Hornby, the charm factor increases substantially and the ick factor, while still adding a dollop of tension, doesn't prevail.

An Education is based on the memoirs of British journalist Lynn Barber, transformed here into young Jenny. It's early 1960s London, and Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is in her last year of high school (or whatever they call it in England), trying to keep her grades up so she can get into Oxford. Her suburban parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) are eagerly supporting this ambition -- in fact, they're probably the ones behind it. When an older man helps Jenny get her cello home one day (no, that's not a euphemism), he turns out to be David (Peter Sarsgaard), a wealthy and cultured real-estate agent. He and his dashing friends want to include Jenny in their social circle, and her parents succumb with only a few little white lies.

Seeing Jenny in her school uniform with David is a little disturbing, and I fretted about her as a potential victim. After awhile, she transforms during the film to someone who looks far more mature than 17 -- it's easy to see why the characters sometimes forget she's still a schoolgirl. She looks very Audrey Hepburn-ish, or at least Pamela Tiffin-ish, but her sophistication doesn't fool her favorite English teacher, Miss Stubbs, or the headmistress (Emma Thompson).

The plot structure of An Education seems unbalanced, with too many things and too lengthy a time period near the end, when I would actually have liked seeing more about what Jenny was doing and how she felt. The ending also seems a little too tidy.

However, the actors are excellent and more than make up for the plot issues. I expected Sarsgaard to be wonderful, but Mulligan adds more depth and emotion to her character than I would have predicted. Alfred Molina's character begins as a cranky-dad stereotype, but by the end of the movie, he's added complexity and empathy. I also liked Olivia Williams as Miss Stubbs -- I hadn't seen much of her since she played a teacher 10 years ago in Rushmore. Rosamund Pike, who played older sister Jane to Jenny's Kitty Bennett in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, is also fun as a sisterly, ditzy companion to David's friend Danny, played by Dominic Cooper with just the right amount of flair.

It's amusing to note that Emma Thompson has glorified cameo roles in two films opening in Austin this weekend: in An Education as the headmistress, and also in Pirate Radio as nearly a complete opposite sort of character.

An Education is directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig, and it's only her second English-language feature film. You'd never know it from the easy dialogue, believable characters, and depiction of London. It's a tough film to watch at times -- I alternated between wanting to shelter poor Jenny from an older man, and understanding perfectly how seductive his world must be to her. Oh, if Peter Sarsgaard's character had come after me in high school, the trouble I might have gotten into ... mmm-hmm.

Loved It!

I just saw "An Education" and can't say enough good things about it. Oddly, I didn't find the premise (or the way this movie portrays it) to be "icky" at all; then again, I'm very open minded about relationships and think the ick factor depends entirely on the two people involved in the relationship. Anyway, everything about this film is spot-on, as the Austin Chronicle review said. I particularly enjoyed the snappy dialog -- and rainy London hasn't looked so good on film in years.