Pictured (from left to right): Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan.
The year is 1961 and Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a 16-year-old English schoolgirl, is feeling anxious about her future. She is an A student (except in Latin) and a gifted cellist. Her father (Alfred Molina) is determined to see her off to Oxford in the fall where she intends to “read English.” However, Jenny imagines a life for herself more satisfying than that of her teachers and other adult role models. Enter David (Peter Sarsgaard), a suave 30-something playboy ready to sweep her off her feet to Paris and anywhere else he and his sophisticated comrades Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike) care to go.
An Education is sharply written and superbly acted with delicate direction from Lone Sherfig. It examines the options of a young woman in the early 1960s with a fresh perspective. Most often in film and television we see women of the 1960s in adulthood having either gone to college or not and reflecting on that choice with regret or gratitude to their younger self. In this film, we are watching that younger self choose between what she sees as a dead-end (college education) and a life of fun and excitement (being with David).
Her views on both options shift throughout the story, after all, Jenny is an intelligent girl and despite her self-professed self-awareness, knows that the others around her speaking caution are doing so with good reason. She sees the extremes before her: the teacher, Ms. Stubbs (Olivia Williams) who wants to help her, and Helen, leading the jet-setting life Jenny dreams of but with little to no worldly knowledge. When trying to salvage her academic prospects Jenny tells the Headmistress (Emma Thompson), “I suppose you think I’m a ruined woman,” to which Thompson coldly, yet aptly responds, “You’re not a woman.” I have many more thoughts on this, but I’m making a point to avoid too many spoilers in my reviews, so I shan’t discuss the plot any further.
Carey Mulligan is a revelation. I recall seeing her in Pride & Prejudice in 2005 as Kitty Bennet, who didn’t so much speak as giggle uncontrollably. However, her work on the television show Dr. Who and onstage in The Seagull (in which she costarred alongside Sarsgaard), earned her attention in the performing world. Now she is being primed for Oscar glory, and it is no mystery why. Most critics are likening her to the young Audrey Hepburn, an appropriate comparison. She carries herself with a sensibility that speaks to an old soul but maintains that utterly endearing quality of a youth discovering life for the first time.
The supporting players are on par. Sarsgaard is wonderfully charming, we fall in love with him as quickly as Jenny does and understand exactly why. Cooper and Pike are engaging as his prim yet hedonistic pals. As the voice of reason, Olivia Williams allows Ms. Stubbs to come across to the audience and to Jenny as someone who wants to help, not someone intent on trapping her in a seemingly dull and rigid future, as portrayed by Emma Thompson and Alfred Molina’s characters. Sally Hawkins of last year’s comedy Happy-Go-Lucky, though her screen time is no more than a full minute, gives her character (whose identity is too crucial a plot point to reveal) all the baggage one would expect this individual to have.
An Education is a real treat. It’s intelligent, humorous, and overall very intellectually and emotionally stimulating to watch. When I finally get around to making my Best of the Year list (which will happen once I see Broken Embraces, Up in the Air, and Avatar), I guarantee this will be on it.
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