An Education (***)
Directed by:Starring: Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Peter Sarsgaard, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson
Seen: January 30th 2010
*** Out of ****
The balance required for all things in life is a delicate thing. Do you simply forget hard work and enjoy every second? Or do you work hard and enjoy the fruits of your labour? Youth is wasted on the young they say, and the wisdom of old age probably on the old then…
Jenny Miller (Mulligan) is a 16-year old schoolgirl living in and experiencing 1961 England. She is beautiful, intelligent and popular at her school, and she has everything going for her as she is on the way to an Oxford education, reading English. But all that soon starts to change when she is assisted in keeping her Cello out of the rain by David Goldman (Sarsgaard), a dangerously charming older man (never given a specific age, I’d put him in his mid 30’s). David eventually gives her a ride home, but that’s only the start of his infatuation with her (and hers with him).
He doesn’t take long to get Jenny’s parents wrapped around his finger as he woos her first by delivering flowers and then by treating her to more lavish extravagances like nights out on the town in expensive restaurants and weekends away in Paris. Her father Jack (Molina) is very conservative but falls for David’s charm rather easily while her mother Marjorie is a more bohemian soul, probably the catalyst in Jack’s being so relaxed about it all. At school her teacher Miss Stubs (Williams) tries everything in her power to convince Jenny of the not so apparent folly of her decisions – but Jenny is adamant to follow what seems to be her dreams at the cost of all else she’s worked towards all her life.
David shows Jenny a world that seems to be nothing but fun, and David’s friends, Danny (Cooper), his art collector business-partner and Helen (Pike), Danny’s unbelievably vacuous girlfriend, simply join the fun while justifying certain “activities” to be able to bankroll their larger than life lifestyle. When Jenny tells Helen she wants to read English at Oxford, Helen’s reply to this is that surely she means she wants to read English books? Danny is a charmer who seems to fall for Jenny for a while, but the truth of his actions is revealed and comes out as the complete opposite of what you might think (primarily of Danny, but not limited to him…).
An Education uses Jenny’s formal education as both a backdrop and a driver in her receiving an education in the bigger sense of the word; in the University of Life. The conflict between the bohemian and the educated is beautifully balanced and the advantages/disadvantages of each revealed as the layers covering them up are peeled back one by one during the run of the movie. All the actors give stellar performances: Alfred Molina his general brilliant self as Jenny’s slightly clueless father, Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike are perfect as David’s little bohemian army, and Emma Thompson and Olivia Williams are suitably stable and satisfied with life in embodying the conscience of the movie. Carey Mulligan is brilliant as the young Jenny who feels old, but not very wise, and for an actress of 24 she very accurately conveys the innocence of a 16 year old. Everyone will find something to identify with in An Education, be it rebellion vs. submission (in any sense of both words), parent-child relationships, or even just a life to long for, something to be content with. An Education is a beautiful recreation of early 60’s England (not that I was present), and a reminder of a much more innocent time, where parents could still think about allowing their 16 year old girl to go out with a mid-30’s man. How things have changed…
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