I love when I get excited about a film solely for the actors involved. It doesn’t matter what the film is about, as long as actors I like are onscreen, I can enjoy it. An Education started out that way, but by the time the credits scrolled upwards, I loved the film as a whole. Peter Sarsgaard (Shattered Glass, Jarhead) and Carey Mulligan (Pride Prejudice, Public Enemies) were the actors I was excited to see. Oh yea, and Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson, and Sally Hawkins were thrown in there too. With all that firepower, and a script by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity), who wouldn’t want to see this film?
An Education is a period piece in London, 1962 (post-war, pre-Beatles). It’s rare I make a note during the screening to mention the opening credits in my review, but they were really great in this one! Jenny (Mulligan) is being pressured by her parents and teachers to do everything she can to get into Oxford for next year. During a rainy afternoon, walking home with her large cello, Jenny is offered a ride from a dashing not-so-young-lad in a sports car, David (Sarsgaard). And the rest is history. It’s not that hard to figure out. Jenny is tired of school life; David takes her away from weekend vacations and a trip to Paris, Jenny’s parents become concerned, yada yada yada. The originality isn’t ground breaking, no, but sub-plots such as David’s questionable career and the twist ending, does have you intrigued more than you’d expect to be with a coming of age love story.
To say the acting is great would be an understatement. Carey Mulligan, quote me, WILL BE making her rounds at the awards shows and will definitely be taking home some hardware. She was fantastic as the young girl thinking beyond her years. She plays two girls: the girl in the school uniform and the girl in the dresses that David buys her. It becomes very interesting when those two girls start to blend together and she can’t tell the difference anymore. Oxford? Who wants to go there? I’m going to Paris! Of course, where’s her father in all of this? Alfred Molina was awesome as Jenny’s disapproving, strict father. He absolutely killed a scene where he finds out Jenny got a 52% on her test because she had been out with David. The infamous “David” is realized very well by Sarsgaard. His accent may have been in question a few times, but he could charm the pants off of anyone. Jenny was only allowed out of the house to go to school before she met David. As long as Jenny was with David, the parents knew (well assumed) he could be trusted. We also see him later in the film as a broken man, quite opposite of what we’re used to. Sarsgaard pulls off both sides of David.
Lone Scherfig has directed a great film that will live both in our minds and our hearts. Nick Hornby placed the script on a tee and Scherfig knocked it out of the park. She places her actors across the screen as if they were chess pieces, elegant and deadly. Love stories are not uncommon, so it takes a certain touch to make then your own. An Education felt fresh and new in many ways. Kudos to Scherfig for not wasting any of the talent the cast and crew placed at her disposal. The powerhouse combo of able actors and great script may have masked some of the things that may have rubbed me the wrong way. I do not want to spoil the ending, but Sarsgaard character is looked up very badly at the films end, which was highly disagreeable to me. Also, David and Jenny’s relationship seemed to strain believability at some points. I’m a big advocate of continuity and loyalty to a sense of time in a film, and there was a bit of that lacking. I had no idea what time of the year it was, which turned out to be important since Jenny had to apply for and get into Oxford. There were some cut scenes and montages from the trips the couple took, and the envelope got a bit stretchy; there didn’t seem to be any way Jenny’s parents would buy David’s lies for that long.
An Education appeals to a wide audience because young people can relate with Jenny’s restlessness, and older viewers with David and Jenny’s parents. See this film soon, because once those nominations come out in a few months, people will be making a point to add An Education to their lists of must-see movies.
