An Education (2009)

Jenny Mellor (Carey Mulligan) is an intelligent and incredibly impressionable young woman. She is in her last year of high school and dreams of living in Paris where she can read books, smoke and be around people ‘who know lots about lots’.  Her father Jack (Alfred Molina) has other ideas, constantly pushing a university education at Oxford down her throat.

Through a chance meeting, a man named David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard) enters her life. At almost twice her age he is charismatic and worldly and completely sweeps Jenny off her feet. She is absolutely adorable and he is unlike anyone she has ever known – a life with him brings endless possibilities.

From attending dinner parties and the theatre with David’s sophisticated friend Danny (Dominic Cooper) and his girlfriend Helen (Rosamund Pike), Jenny is completely in her element. Not only does David want to take her to Paris, but he manages to convince her naïve parents (her placid and kind mother played by Cara Seymour) to let him do so unsupervised. She has hit the jackpot and there is no turning back.

Director Lone Scherfig (Italian For Beginners) gets a remarkable performance out of Mulligan, who is enchanting, warm and graceful. Jenny is wise beyond her years but maintains the right amount of innocence to make her a likeable character.  Sarsgaard is equally enthralling, playing David equally charming and predatory.

Without giving too much of the plot away, David plays an incredibly important role in Jenny’s life, shaping the woman she becomes and giving her invaluable experience in a world she otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to, as a teenager anyway. Whether David helps Jenny realise her full potential and is the gateway to a life outside a small English town or whether he is her downfall is irrelevant, as he has played an irreplaceable role in her journey.

Based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, Nick Hornby (About A Boy, High Fidelity) has written a succinct and engaging screenplay that is letdown by a lacklustre and awfully tidy ending. After so many highs and lows in their relationship, one would hope there would be a more satisfying conclusion rather than an easy way to quickly wrap events up.

While An Education is a cautionary tale, there are some mistakes in life that need to be made in one way or another. There are also things a formal education can’t teach you – sometimes people are too good to be true, but just how we discover this is the real life lesson.

★★★☆