AN EDUCATION
E1 ENTERTAINMENT
RELEASED 30 October 2009
Nick Hornby, author of ‘High Fidelity’ and ‘About a Boy’ (both of which were adapted into hugely successful movie) has taken a portion of journalist Lyn Barber’s memoirs and created ‘An Education’, the tale of a young schoolgirl in 1961 who is top of her class and surely Oxford-bound. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) likes nothing better than to trade French quips with her pals as they dream of Paris, and snatch illicit cigarettes whilst on breaktime from their all-girls school. Her father, Jack (Alfred Molina), doesn’t really approve of anything French, but he’s willing to give up every last penny to make sure his daughter achieves her dreams. One afternoon, Jenny is waiting at the bus-stop in the pouring rain after a cello lesson, and a fancy sportscar pulls up, with the driver, David (Peter Sarsgaard), offering to carry the cello in the backseat as he can’t stand to see such a beautiful instrument get damaged. Not wanting his intentions to appear dubious, he gives Jenny £15 insurance for the cello and insists she walk alongside the car, until Jenny decides it’s obvious he’s not a lunatic and jumps in. It isn’t long before David has charmed Jenny’s parents and is taking Jenny to fancy nightclubs and concerts a world away from her boring world of revision and dull schoolboys. Dazzled by the bright lights, Jenny begins to doubt whether Oxford is really for her.
‘An Education’ is a story we’ve all seen before, but the writing and acting elevate this movie to the heights of cinema. It’s not an empty claim to declare Carey Mulligan is a big new British star. Her performance has drawn comparison with Audrey Hepburn, and her dark hair, fragile frame, and beguiling personality certainly do echo the ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys’ star. Every time Mulligan speaks, she inflects the words with emotion and a dripping sarcasm that belies her young age. Speaking on sex, she delights with the line, ‘all that poetry and all those songs about something that lasts no time at all.’ She controls langauage like Judi Dench or Emma Thompson (who appears in the film as the school headmistress), and her performance utterly dominates the film. That’s not to say the rest of cast don’t do sterling work. Sarsgaard imbues his dodgy ‘older man’ with the requisite charm that gets him what he wants, and his bedroom patter (‘Minny’ and ‘Bub-a-lub’) is appropriately creepy. Rosamund Pike gives a hilarious turn as a dumb blonde (ironic given that she actually graduated from Oxford), her trouble understanding why anyone would want to read books summing her simple life up in one sentence. Molina is superb as the easily-swayed father, and utters one of the films’ best lines, ‘becoming a famous author isn’t the same as knowing one.’ Olivia Williams offers restrained emotion as teacher Miss Stubbs, and Matthew Beard is lovingly awkward as innocent schoolboy Graham.
Nick Hornby’s script couldn’t have been delivered by a better cast, and ‘An Education’ is further proof that he is one of our leading British talents. His writing in this film is sharp, insightful (how different the world was a mere fifty years ago), sad, and very witty.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE