Movie Review: An Education

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. WAS THAT AUDREY HEPBURN? — Not exactly, but that's the obvious comparison director Lone Scherfig is hoping the audience (and critics) will make, not just by memorably filming Carey Mulligan in Paris but generally relying on her young star's charm to do the heavy lifting. That said, An Education still feels light as air and the 22-year-old Mulligan's innocence as a 16-year-old in London is the convincing, essential crux that makes this pre-liberation coming-of-age story work.
   
2. NOT A FALSE NOTE FROM THE REST OF THE CAST EITHER — It's Mulligan's movie, to be sure, but take nothing away from every other actor she shares the screen with. The two men of the film—Peter Sarsgaard as the London hustler that seduces Mulligan's Jenny, and Alfred Molina playing her middle-class father obsessed with sending his daughter to Oxford—give the reliably terrific performances I've come to expect from them. But there's also an extremely good mix of supporting female turns that each add to Jenny's development in different ways: Cara Seymour's quietly caring mother, Rosamund Pike's surprisingly fresh variation of the typical dumb blonde, and Olivia Williams' Miss Stubbs, the English teacher who cautions Jenny on the dangers of dating an older man. And perhaps the grandest of all surprises comes from Emma Thompson's brief appearances as the stern headmistress with a strongly disapproving tone that's deliciously tart. 
   
3. THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT HORNBY — It's based on the memoir of British journalist Lynn Barber, but to me, it's yet another feather in the cap of Nick Hornby—one of the few novelists out there about whom I can usually say I read the book before I saw the movie. I don't think An Education is supposed to resonate with me the same way, say, High Fidelity did when I first read that, but just like that film version or About a Boy, Hornby's scripts have a fine ear for dialogue and a masterful way of incorporating the art and music important to his characters that feels both remarkably sweet and touchingly genuine.

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. CONVENTIONAL ARC FOR A CONVENTIONAL AUDIENCE — There's the usual mistakes a young girl makes in her life and those signs she misses, which I suppose comes with the territory when you're illustrating the way youthful perceptions are changed. An Education, at times, has the feel of making sure it covers every one of those.
   
2. WAIT A MINUTE—THIS WASN'T DIRECTED BY ROMAN POLANSKI? — Sarsgaard's David is, what, more than twice the age of Mulligan's Jenny? And yet An Education indeed feels as though it flatly ignores the basic creepiness of the whole thing, almost as if the film doesn't want to risk making David even the least bit loathsome.
   
3. THAT'S REALLY NEAT — The final half-hour of the movie proceeds to clean just about every aspect of Jenny's life without much issue—other than somewhat reversing its tone and feeling a tad bit preachy.
   

25 WORDS OR LESS:

Carey Mulligan is radiant enough to make another story of first love sparkle despite the occasional plot blemish.