Movie Review- An Education

An Education

When I walked out of this movie I had some mixed feelings. The first half of the movie was very funny and the characters were very interesting and fun to watch. The story flowed very well and I was having one of the best movie experiences of the year. Then about half way through the movie it turned into something different. I didn’t get the choices of the characters, the story seemed bogged down with lots of conflict, I didn’t buy the relationship between the two main characters, and I left the movie a little disappointed. Now that I’ve had a day to think about it I’ve come to the conclusion that the movie was better than my original reaction. I was disappointed because the movie wasn’t what I was expecting it to be. I thought it was suppose to be a romantic drama, but I realize now that it was much more than that.

The movie stars Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a 16-year-old girl living in England in 1961. She goes to an all girls’ school studying hard to make it into Oxford. She is driven by her strict, and very easily flustered father played incredibly by Alfred Molina. Her father wants nothing less than the best education for his daughter. So he makes her study hard, pays for language tutors, and forces her to play the cello in order to get her into one of the best colleges in the country. One could say he probably pushes a little too hard, and lets no room for Jenny to have any fun. Then steps in David played very charmingly by Peter Sarsgaard. He’s an older man, 30 years old, who is wealthy, drives a nice car, has class, and seems to have fun all the time and never works.

Jenny becomes fascinated by David and joins him and his friends to concerts, clubs, auctions, and trips to Oxford and Paris. Her father of course doesn’t approve at first but David is so charming that he can talk him into letting Jenny do whatever she wants. As the movie goes on one gets the feeling that there is something shady about David. He never talks about work yet him and his friends seem very wealthy with lots of pricy possessions, and to top it all he’s dating a 16-year-old girl. Jenny has to decide does she want to study English at Oxford for what she perceives will make for a boring life, or does she want to quit school and marry David and live a life full of fun and adventure.

Like I said before the movie really isn’t about the romantic relationship between her and David. I know the trailers and posters seem to just feature Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard looking romantically at each other, but really it’s a little misleading. It’s really about a young girl trying to make grown up decisions that she really isn’t ready for or doesn’t fully understand. She sees her life as being very boring. She sees her future as being very boring and her only way out it through David. So she ends up making hasty and foolish decisions, like normal 16 year olds do, and learns from them the hard way.

One can’t blame her for her perspective though. Her parents do seem to live a boring life. Her mom is a housewife and spends all her time cleaning the house and cooking dinner. Her dad works all day to provide for the family and seems to have no fun at all. Her female English teacher seems very plain and spends all her time grading papers. Yes growing up can seem kind of boring to a teenager, being loaded with responsibility can do that to a person. She learns in the end though that as you grow up your perspective on life changes. You might not do all the fun things you did when you were younger, but it doesn’t mean your life is boring. In fact for most, working hard and providing for a family brings more meaning to your life, which is more important than just having fun. If only we could all understand this sooner in our life.

I really liked this movie and I recommend it to anybody who likes a smartly written, sophisticated movie. It was surprisingly very funny and had a lot of witty dialogue. It slows down in the latter half of the movie but not enough to ruin it. Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, and Peter Sarsgaard all gave some of the best performances of the year. Mulligan is worthy of all the award praise that she has been getting. She has a great comedic ability and handles all the frustration a teenager would have, in the situations given, very convincingly. The movie made me think about my own life, and the choices I’ve made. My life isn’t always fun, but it is full of meaning. Is yours?

Grade: B

Rated PG-13- Some scenes involving sexual content but nothing explicit, some sexual dialogue.