Movie Review: An Education

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard In An Education
Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

Las Vegas is the nominal “Entertainment Capital of The World.” Yet, if that’s true, why is it that Las Vegas sometimes gets new films weeks after they open other places? And, when they do come here, some of them seem to be well-kept secrets, playing for only a short time at one or two theaters — usually the Regal Village Square and The Suncoast. Local cineastes are aware of this and I heard talk of a petition drive to correct the situation. Until that happens, though, we’ll have to content ourselves with reading the film schedules for local theaters very closely every Friday and quickly see those small films we don’t want to miss.

One of those for me was An Education, a British film whose star, Carey Mulligan, is getting a lot of buzz and who has been nominated for a Golden Globe.

Mulligan is Jenny, a 16 year-old Oxford aspirant in 1961 London. She’s beautiful, smart and bored, going through the motions of getting an education so she can go to university, read English and, one day, do….something. Even if she doesn’t know why she’s taking this path, she’s doggedly sticking to it.

Then David enters her life. He’s older — in his 30s — exciting, sophisticated. He’s also Jewish in a time when a school headmistress can still say that the Jews killed Jesus. But, he is also overwhelmingly charming. He charms Jenny and her parents Jerry (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour). Though warned by her teacher (Olivia Williams) and the aforementioned headmistress (Emma Thompson), Jenny falls for him and her parents fall into line.

Jenny is entranced by the life David opens for her — jazz clubs, art auctions, greyhound races and by his friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike). Any questions about precisely how he earns a living or why he and Danny stole an antique map with such élan, all vaporize as Jenny’s eyes are opened to an exciting new world.

David, of course, isn’t nearly perfect and the inevitable discovery of that fact is very difficult for Jenny. We care what happens to her and her confrontation with David and his world and her dealing with the fallout of that confrontation keep the film absorbing to the end.

An Education isn’t groundbreaking or news in, really, any way. It takes us back to a more innocent time with a story that, really, holds no surprises. Peter Sarsgaard as David is just so nice, that the engrossed viewer is, in his or her way, left feeling as betrayed as Jenny.

(I must note that I really enjoy watching Alfred Molina. Here, he’s a middle-class Brit but he’s also played Mexican, Russian, gay, straight and Tevye in the latest Broadway revival of Fiddler On the Roof. He is always good.)

An Education, was directed by Lone Scherfig; written by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity), based on a memoir by Lynn Barber. They have presented us with a very engaging film. Too bad we here in Las Vegas haven’t had too much of a chance to see it. If it’s still around, take a couple of hours and go.

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