AN EDUCATION

Nancy’s Movie Ratings:
•    Absolutely must see in the theater
•    Must see on Demand
•    Will see on an airplane if too tired to work
•    Might see on Demand if nothing else and really too tired to read
•    Might see if hospitalized for long recovery and have seen everything else
•    Will definitely see if in prison and the only film playing

I’ve been dying to see “An Education” for ages but haven’t had a lot of movie time. “An Education” is a movie adaptation of a coming-of-age memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber. Directed by Lone Scherfig and staring an adorable new British actress Carey Mulligan, with Peter Sarsgaard as the seducer, Alfred Molina as her father, and Emma Thompson (please tell me that big stomach was a pillow).

Let’s start with the Danish director Lone Scherfig who is a fifty-year old woman, YAY! And this was not a Hollywood fluff, patronizing romantic comedy. It was a serious drama about a serious subject that never seems to get stale. Scherfig is known for her cinéma vérité style, plain life, no special effects or bling. Just the facts, ma’am. And it worked so well in this film.

The story is about a sixteen-year old British schoolgirl, Jenny who meets the worldly and sophisticated David who appears to be a v e r y soft mid-thirties. The story takes place in 1961 and people smoked and didn’t work out back then, so his pudgy body and slack face made it all the more realistic.

Carey Mulligan, though in real life is twenty-four, was a realistic sixteen year old with a face that hasn’t lost its baby fat, and the starry eyes of a virgin as she goes from a plain and gawky ducking to a sling-back pumped, sheath swathed swan, with sensational updos and Cleopatra eyeliner. Peter Sarsgaard is a despicably charmingly sexual predator.

Jenny, who is already discontent with convention and impatient for her adult life to begin is a prime target when David offers to pave the way for her to leave the rigidity of her education (including the Oxford University education that she has worked for her entire life) to a new, exciting, dangerous, carnally delicious life of stolen art, champagne, concerts, trips to Paris, expensive clothing, pastel French cigarettes, and Chanel No. 5.

I was completely knocked out by Alfred Molina who plays her father, Jack, the hardworking, money-fretting, suburban conservative, who makes you cringe with his ineptness but is heart wrenching when he finally opens up. I thought it was the best performance I have ever seen him deliver, and that is saying something.

My only criticism was the ending. I thought it was a little too neat and that life doesn’t work out that way. It takes a lifetime to unravel the mistakes that Jenny makes. But of course we don’t have a lifetime to sit and watch one single movie, so I forgive.
Nancy’s Movie Rating: Absolutely must see in the theater.