An Education

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An Education

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An Education

Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper

A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.

Id: 11058380

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An Education Recent Reviews
  • smith44
    December 19, 2009
    smith44
    Carey Mulligan is a Sensation, this girl is the real deal, totally encompassing her role, creating a vividly luicd character. A lock for a nomination, perhaps even a winner. All told An Education is an excellent film, beautiful to watch, with great poigancy in its social commenta...( read more)ry and ulimate ending.
  • hypathio7
    December 18, 2009
    hypathio7
    Reminded me a bit of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Granted that movie is not very fresh in my mind, and as I watched this, I thought they were set around the same time. However, that other film was made around the time this story is set (in the 60's), but was itself set in the...( read more) 1930's. In that other English girls' school drama Maggie Smith is the central figure, a liberal feminist teacher sharing romantic ideals of beauty and art with her impressionable students. In An Education you have the reverse. The central figure is Carey Mulligan as the student Jenny. She is drawn into a highly romanticized love affair with an older man. She is quite literate and yearns for the sort of exciting life the women in her novels experience. No older female influence is needed to push her, well Pike as Helen helps her feel more grown up as Jenny double dates with David and his friends Danny and Helen. Olivia Williams, who as the English teacher appears past her prime to Jenny, and Emma Thompson as the Headmistress try to advocate staying in school and getting a college education, so that the young women don't have to rely on a man to take care of their every need. What seems like an exciting cultured life of seeing Paris and appreciating the finer things must be weighed against a boring several years of reading textbooks and writing papers. I wonder if Lynn Barber, the author of the memoir on which this movie is based, had read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie or seen the movie version during her youth.
  • moonrivers
    December 17, 2009
    moonrivers
    ah yeeesssss, what's it to be then, "the good life", fast and easy (it sure looks good in the movies!), or that oh-so-boring alternative with all that WORK (what in the dickens is THAT all about????)? the bbc alone makes attention to the little details (like a decent script) see...( read more)m droll (when in fact it's a riduculously precious commodity) and do so again here. a quiet and tough little film indeed with a well rounded cast hitting on all cylinders.
  • 366weirdmovies
    December 16, 2009
    366weirdmovies
    A 16-year old Oxford-bound schoolgirl falls in love with a worldly older man. Well-done, believable coming-of-age tale with excellent performances, realistic characterizations, and few surprises.
  • FangsFirst
    December 2, 2009
    FangsFirst
    I had two free passes to the local arthouse styled theatre that were running out Monday, so I decided to go see whatever the heck was showing. One film was House of the Devil, a throwback horror film that I truly loved, the other was a film that I thought sounded like the ...( read more)kind I might pick up on a whim (lo, it was released by Sony Pictures Classics, an arm of Sony I trust pretty blindly to do right by me)--this one. I knew the essence of the plot, but tried to keep my readings vague, so as to avoid spoiling any of it, this being my preference when I see any film. I knew only the name Peter Sarsgaard of the primary cast and had never heard of Danish director Lone Scherfig.

    Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a 16 year old prep school student in 1961 Twickenham, London who plans to go to Oxford and then "become French," living in France, reading French literature, speaking French, eating French food, and smoking constantly. Her father Jack (Alfred Molina) discourages her from doing anything that does not further her education (barring those things which are appreciated by acceptance boards at Oxford), even things like playing her cello, which he notes will impress Oxford as a "hobby," but then continues need not be practiced as it is a "hobby." Her mother Majorie (Cara Seymour) tries to smooth things between them as Jenny tests her father's "rules," attempting to reason him into allowing her some ideas. Jenny has a fledgling romance with orchestra-mate Graham (Matthew Beard) until the poor boy makes the mistake of suggesting he might take a year off from school, which does not earn the respect of Jack. One rainy day after orchestra rehearsal, Jenny is approached from a car by a man who offers to at least shield her cello from the rain as she walks home by placing it in his car. Jenny's amused by the man's charm, and he introduces himself as David (Sarsgaard) and strikes up a conversation, eventually getting herself out of the rain alongside her cello in David's sportscar. Slowly taken with him and running into him periodically, Jenny begins to accept offers from David when he gives her the opportunity to experience the culture she so loves and admires--concerts, jazz bars, art auctions and so on. He introduces her to his friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike), and begins to take her further and further out into the world, all the while slowly romancing her. His charm works even on Jack and Majorie, allowing this to happen with their consent. A trip to Oxford pushes at Jenny's principles, but she finds herself torn between a small moral capitulation and the chance to have a "real life."

    Of course, once I saw the cast appear onscreen, I realized instantly that there was another name here I knew very well: Alfred Molina. In fact, this knowledge was humourous to me as I watched Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes and the segment with Molina and Steve Coogan showed, where the joke was how unknown Molina was--when the opposite was true for me. Of course, I also know the screenwriter, Nick Hornby, albeit primarily from the Americanized film version of High Fidelity. Still these were primarily passing knowledge, especially Hornsby and Sarsgaard. The synposis I read led me to expect something far more drastic was hiding behind these scenes than actually turned out, so I was surprised in this respect, and it probably helped to keep my understanding of the film "in line" with its intentions. It's worth noting here that it is an adaptation of journalist Lynn Barber's actual experiences, and that this often shores up some seemingly unusual choices.

    The most interesting role by far is that of David, as Sarsgaard is forced, as many have put it, to walk the line between charming and creepy. He is charming and does not come across as purely sleazy, despite being a 30-something man romancing a 16 year old girl, though I did spend half the movie with fingertips placed at my forehead in a sort of preliminary (or perhaps vestigial?) representation of the desire to hide the film from my eyes. I was hideously uncomfortable for a lot of it. I was perhaps too charmed by David myself, but could not shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong anyway. I'm a little more open-minded than most, I suppose, as I roll my eyes at those who called American Beauty a sick film about a pedophile, but I had great difficulty stopping myself from slumping down further and further into my seat and squirming at many moments (the scene involving pet names was particularly excruciating). I can't say it was a flaw, but it was a bit of a problem. I suppose I was really directed very perfectly into the place of Jenny herself, torn between the allure of an exciting life and the responsibility of the one that is hard and boring but theoretically the "best" choice. At the same time, there was a definite feeling that it was entirely too easy to see how she was deceived, and yet wish she wouldn't be. Jenny is not stupid, she is very clever in her interactions with everyone, but she's so thoroughly charmed by David that she's easily taken in by him, but especially because he brings her all the things she wants.

    The central concept is the variable defintion of "education," being either the worldly education offered by David or that of Oxford, with various tangential definitions, such as learning about life via the parts of David that were not showing originally. It's a valid argument that Jenny gives her Headmistress--that there is no one telling the students why, exactly, they must get an education--except to go on and use that dull, hard, boring education to live a dull, hard, boring life. It makes the choice of David seem obvious, yet, at the same time, we know (hopefully!) is not so simple as all of that. There's no good argument (at least none I've heard) against Jenny's, but at the same time there's an understanding, for me at least, that other paths are more difficult or simply aren't as good as they seem to be. It's nice that the film doesn't attempt to truly explain or answer this question, even if it does show Lynn Barber's actual decisions and life at the end, what she chooses to pursue and follow for her life. She admits that she has aged but not become experienced or wise because of the events she takes part in, which seems a good way of putting it.
  • divinetrash
    December 25, 2009
    divinetrash
    Carey Mulligan gives an outstanding performance that is at times sweet and smart and other times annoying and stupid, which is exactly how someone going through the motions at such young age acts all the time. She's a natural who really makes you feel the uncertainty of her chara...( read more)cter and makes her relatable both in wise and wrong decisions.
  • ray172
    December 25, 2009
    ray172
    I really liked this movie, solid story, great acting. A winner.
  • rayld02
    December 25, 2009
    rayld02

    Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard, with an affair to remember kind of meeting.

    An Education - a touchingly relevant movie I've seen this Christmas day. Last year, I saw Laurence Olivier...( read more)'s 1948 "Hamlet", Elia Kazan's 1954 "On the Waterfront", Robert Rossen's 1949 "All The King's Men", and William Wyler's 1946 "The Best Years of Our Lives" - old ones, but true great drama films to see on seasons like this. This year, I watched probably instant favorites, Clint Eastwood's "Invictus" and Lone Scherfig's "An Education".

    Can't get enough of Carey Mulligan's acting. She is such a sweetheart, with her looks, deceivingly younger than she appears to be. She has true great moments in this film, with feats to either make you feel bad about her being a hard-headed girl, or to make you feel good with her witty sense of humor.

    Carey Mulligan is always the center of attraction every time she appears on screen. How's that possible is maybe because she casts spells before her stepping in front of the camera. Well that's just an assumption of events, and I don't know either if that's true. Kidding aside, see the film to prove the offsets of my thoughts. (winks)

    Jenny, that's a name you'll always remember, and prematurely associate it with this film. We hear the name everytime, at sourest or sweetest of moments. That's because that's a name which merely signifies one great element of life. Everyone can be a "Jenny" at all points in our lives. Logically, everyone can be that center of attention, it's everyone's story - failure.

    Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a 16-year young high school student who aspires of setting foot in Oxford University. From the beginning of the frames, we see her as a humorous and active student. She participates in class discussions and so on. Average though, but quite capable. Her father Jack (Alfred Molina) and mother Marjorie (Cara Seymour) push her to work hard for her education, and become a privileged student of the well-known university.

    Jenny is a fan of all sorts of arts; music, paintings, films hugely interests her way of thinking and lifestyle. She is also a fan of great writers and philosophies from books.

    Jenny is a cello-player. On her way from school to home, she meets a middle-age Jew named David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard). The man offers Jenny a ride home reasoning that he cannot stand seeing the cello getting all soaked up in the pouring rain. And everything has never been the same for her from that moment on.

    It's a story of boy meets girl. Maybe your typical love story introduction, boy asks girl, they get along, and fall in love. But it's more of a story of learning to decide without short cuts. Because life isn't just a one way short street, it's a long and winding road (just like the Beatles' song) with unrelenting crossroads to make us falter and fall at most times. But that's the essence of living, we cannot get along all the way without failures. Yet failures make us the individuals we are right now. Like what the great French author Gabriel Marcel once said, that sufferings are more important than happiness (it is implied though). It's one's decisions that make him true justifiably happy or not (very existentialist eh?). It's one's decisions and he himself could only make differences in the plot of his life. None is written, and fate is nothing, because fate is just a passive cognition of the word decide - opposite to what "Slumdog Millionaire" insists.

    An Education strikes me at my faintest of emotions. It tackles simple yet relevant topic that connotes something beautiful - being a failure doesn't stop you from living. Schooling is one thing, education is different. Not all you learn from books are essentially applicable, but everything you experience and learn from living makes a human inside your existence.

    The film gives us a tantamount feel of Romanticism. from the set light decorations and the music unnoticeably playing on the background. The pictures are really breath-taking. Thanks to it's cinematographer John De Borman, who by all effort has extracted a feeling of good ambiance in scenes. Another compelling element of the film's success is its screenplay. It's poetic, words go by in perfect timing and of right amount relative to the delivery of script.

    Watch the movie and talk aboit it with your friends. It may be a good idea to ready your notes and learn from everybody's shared thoughts.





    The first parts of the film is a happy story of love. But my instincts say that there is something wrong with Sarsgaard being too good to be true kind of guy. I loved Sargaard's acting but I hate his character, a big piece of selfish trash. Instantly I felt an aroused sympathy for Jenny the moment I learned about David's intrepid lying. It's a heart-breaking film, with much more thoughts and wonderings after effect than "(500) Days of Summer" and "Casablanca" say must I.
  • merillupin
    December 22, 2009
    merillupin
    I wish I were Carey Mulligan in this film. Jenny leads an idyllic existence alongside David, until the screenwriter realizes he needs to add some conflict somewhere, and things end more than abruptly. Despite the unfulfilling ending, I found An Education delightful, in large part...( read more) due to Mulligan, who manages to be pretty AND smart AND charming, and somehow not annoy me!
  • ukxenafan1
    December 21, 2009
    ukxenafan1
    Really good performances in an engaging period/social drama. 16 year old Jenny and her well meaning parents fall for a suave older man, David, who shows Jenny a world beyond Latin and English and A levels. It is no real surprise when he turns out not to be quite so perfect, but i...( read more)t is not really the plot that makes this film enjoyable, it is the atmosphere and the characters and performances. Mulligan has grabbed a lot of headlines, and she is indeed excellent. Her portrayal of Jenny is immensely likeable and sympathetic - fairly crucial as the film would not have worked if you didn't feel for Jenny. I was less of a fan of Peter Sarsgaard's David. He struggles with the accent and from the start is rather creepy. The rest of the supporting cast is uniformly excellent however. Alfred Molina an adorably daft dad, Olivia Williams as Jenny's prim English teacher, Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike as David's feckless friends, even tiny turns from Emma Thompson and Sally Hawkins.
    At times I was unsure the story was strong enough, but the performances are what made this film for me.
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