An Education

An Education

100 Minutes

In 1961, repressed Londoners longed to shake off the postwar blues and they were more than ready for the swinging cultural explosion that was launched by Beatlemania. An Education dramatizes the parallels between Jenny (Carey Mulligan), an attractive, bright, 16-year-old schoolgirl’s questionable romance with a man twice her age and the era itself.

Jenny, a serious student with voracious intelligence and Francophile who can’t wait to shake off the constraints of her sheltered suburban Twickenham upbringing, is on the brink of womanhood. Suffocated by the tedium of routine and inchoate adolescent longings, Jenny can’t wait for adult life to begin. “After I’ve been to university I’m going to be French”, she declares. Meanwhile, she’s a diligent student, excelling in every subject except the Latin that her father is convinced will win her the place she has been working for at Oxford University. One rainy day, her suburban life is upended when an unsuitable suitor, thirtysomething David (Peter Sarsgaard) rolls into her life driving a gorgeous maroon Bristol.

Cosmopolitan, suave and witty, David quickly manages to charm her conservative parents Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour), and effortlessly overcomes any instinctive objections to their daughter’s much older, Jewish suitor. Instantly, David replaces Jenny’s traditional education with his own version, whisking her off to smart concerts, clubs and late-night dinners with his friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny’s girlfriend, the beautiful but not-so-bright Helen (Rosamund Pike). At school, Jenny has become quite fashionable and chic, passing out Russian cigarettes and cluing in the other girls on the correct interpretation of existentialist philosophy. David uses a sly mixture of flattery and lies to convince her parents to let him take Jenny to Paris for her 17th birthday; the date and place she has chosen to lose her virginity. Paris is all that Jenny imagined it would be, sex with David less so. On her return to Twickenham, Jenny’s school friends are thrilled with her new sophistication but her headmistress (Emma Thompson) is scandalized and her English teacher Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) is deeply disappointed that her prize pupil seems determined to throw away her gifts and certain chance of higher education. Just as the family’s long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by a different life. Her parents become conflicted between the desire to see their daughter climb the social ladder by using her intelligence and the idea that maybe a marriage to David is a quicker road to higher society. Jenny loses her innocence, sexually and otherwise, but the balance of power between David and her begins to shift as she discovers who he really is.

An Education is rooted firmly in a particular time so a great deal of care went into making sure that the period details were right. Viewers will delight in the cars, the interiors and the costumes, particularly when Jenny trades her school uniform for a slinky cocktail dress and an Audrey Hepburn hairdo. Interestingly, while the film benefits greatly from this attention to period detail and accuracy, the film breaks the barrier between the era and the audience, making us forget that we are watching a film that takes place in the early ’60s because of our emotional connection to Jenny.

There’s no question of who the star is here. Mulligan, 22 when the film was shot, is completely convincing as 16 going on 17. She shines in a captivating performance that conveys simultaneously naïveté and knowingness, vulnerability and strength, while she tangibly communicates Jenny’s hunger for knowledge, her attraction to culture and impatience at conservative thought and behavior. However, from an actor’s perspective, David is the most complicated character. He’s charming and smooth enough to seduce not just Jenny, but also her parents, everyone around him, and ultimately the audience; on the other side, he’s also occasionally gauche and, in the end, pathetic.

There are many reasons — legal, moral and ethical — to object to David’s opportunistic treatment of the impressionable girl. But the film assumes the perspective of its protagonist, that, in spite of David’s deceptions, he has been someone very much worth knowing for his wit, intelligence and sense of fun. Sarsgaard’s performance is well orchestrated and layered, and he has the courage to try and get as many facets there as possible and still tell the story. It is crucial to the movie’s delicate, comic tone that intimations of the predatory, duplicitous aspects of David’s character do not emerge too quickly. The audience, too, needs to be seduced and fooled for a while, and Sarsgaard handles a tricky role with sly assurance, permitting doubt and then revulsion to mix, bit by bit, with our impression of him.

Based on a memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber, Nick Hornby’s droll, incisive screenplay skillfully nails Jenny’s inner life and Lone Scherfig’s emotionally pulsing, culturally observant direction makes the movie burst with life. Every scene sparkles with vivacious dialogue, as Jenny maneuvers her way into the big wide world of exciting and devious adults. Mulligan captures every nuance of the character with an understated charm, transforming from an English schoolgirl in a drab uniform to a lovely desirable woman. However, without Sarsgaard’s restrained and morally ambiguous performance, Mulligan would not be able to shine as brightly. What makes An Education a special film is the social forces brewing underneath the surface that impact these all-too-human characters.

by Teri Carson