"An education isn't always by the book," reads the tagline of Lone Scherfig's latest film triumph "An Education", and this is a line which is proved dreadfully true in a film, deep and refreshing unlike any other I've seen this year. It's based on a memoir by Lynn Barber (and her real-life words give all the more importance and meaning to the story) and it's been adapted by Nick Hornby ("About a Boy", "High Fidelity"), a master of dialogue and character development. As a matter of fact, the film is entirely character-driven, and even though in essence it contains a simple and unimpressive plot, the characters and their infinite subtleties keep us riveted to their words and expressions, anxious to learn their following line, their following choice.
The film follows Jenny (Carey Mulligan) an incredibly bright, cultured teenager who attends a school for girls in Twickenham, London. The year is 1961, and teenagers still live in a blissful innocence where the worst crime they can think of is sneaking a cigarette in a nearby bistro after school and giggling after boys and the harmless kisses they throw their way. Jenny is THE best student in her classroom, straight A's, and she studies hard because she wants to be accepted into Oxford for an A-class education in English literature. We immediately fall in love with Jenny, and every second of the film you just want to embrace her and wish you could be like her.
Jenny lives with her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour), a pair of extremely conservatives who struggle through their poverty to give her the best education there is. Her father is a stressful man, and we marvel at how his wife and his daughter can live in his strict, no-nonsense regime...but at the core, he's a sweet and shy man who's neglected life's pleasures en lieu of his family's well-being. So we don't hate him...much. Along comes David (Peter Sarsgaard), a suave, charming 30-year old with wads of money and life-experience, and Jenny is entranced by him. After all, she's a repressed student with no social life so to speak of and this is a man who knows the world and has the know-how to 'make it big' in any country he so wishes, so of course she's going to be impressed and flattered by him...even through his obvious age difference and somewhat shady business. She's been educated through textbooks and essays; this man offers her an education through experience. "What university did you go to?," she asks, and he aptly answers "the university of life." From here on, it's a steady emotional downfall for Jenny into adult pleasures she's by no means prepared for.
The film is slow-paced and has no twists whatsoever (with the exception of a shocking twist near the end of the film), but what saves it and makes it truly special and original is the way characters are developed, and the subtle yet heart-wrenching life lessons they learn along the way towards maturity. Carey Mulligan gives what I believe to be the one of the best female performance of the year as our intelligent yet naive heroine; in her every expression, her every pause when delivering her lines, the every twitch of her muscles demonstrates the powerful struggle between her cold logic and her passion. She's a character we can all identify with, and through her relationship with David, we see how she matures and how she deals with the danger of life. Alfred Molina is stereotyped throughout the film, but there's a scene towards the end where he sheds his shield and bears his soul to us, twisting our hearts beyond repair. Rosamund Pike plays Helen (one of David's friends), delivering- via her mindless character- a sad and revealing white world we live in. Actually, ALL of the actors do an excellent job in their performances, and led by the surprising brilliance of Mulligan's portrayal, they transform a stale and overused story into a gem of a film.
The dialogue is beyond superb. Notice a scene where Jenny and Helen meet at the opera and Jenny explains how she wants to read English at Oxford; lines just don't get any better than this. Notice Jenny's final encounter with her school principal (played by Emma Thompson); in a few minutes, and in a couple of lines, the discussion that goes on between them etches its way into our hearts forever. Nick Hornby has done wonders with his material, and teamed with sleek, stylish directing by Scherfig, the actors have so much material to work with. The cinematography is poignant, the score is charming and the production design is involving. This just goes to prove that with the right cast and crew, a stale story can be refined into something brilliant and overwhelming.
And this is the reason why I found the ending of "An Education" the only weak point of the film and very disappointing: Miraculously, Jenny is finally admitted to Oxford, and suddenly the dull and boring life she detested earlier in the film, as seen in the arguments with her teacher and headmistress, is OK? WHY? The ending seemed far too moralizing, as if to say to the young viewers of the film: "Just stay in school, always conform to what society expects of you, even if it seems boring and useless (like wasting years of your wonderful youth in school), in the end it will all be fine!" The cheap feel-good-turn at the end, THAT was implausible. It would have been so much better if the film ended with Jenny NOT being admitted to Oxford, leaving the rest to the viewer's imagination.
I give 80% fresh to this movie.
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