Neal Reviews | Movies

An Education

Films based on memoirs are a particular sub-genre in the Based on a True Story realm.  They are from a particular vantage point, seen in retrospect though the eyes of an individual who lived though the events.  For such reasons, they often have an uncanny ability to speak with poignance and insight.  An Education is just such a film, offering the story of one teenage English girl’s perpetual romantic rendezvous with a man two decades older than her.  It turns out to be an education she could never have gotten elsewhere.

Jenny is a talented and intelligent schoolgirl, going through the motions to appease her overbearing father (played brilliantly by Alfred Molina), soon to take her exams for university (she hopes for Oxford), and on her way to a life she has little desire to live.  David (an incredible performance by Peter Sarsgaard) pulls up to the curb of her life and offers her cello a ride, and one for her as well if she’s interested.  As it happens, the day he pulls up it’s raining cats and dogs, much like the stormy milieu of Jenny’s home life, and she hops in – a car ride that would change her life forever.  The parallel is unavoidable and effective. Through a series of events, she and David come to know and fancy one another, and, as these things go, they fall in love. The life she lives while she is with David is unlike anything she had ever experienced, and she is loving her life as she never knew before.  It is said that all good things must end.  And so they must.

England in the 1960’s was a society still in the throws of racial segregation.  Jenny at one point refers to them as Negroes. The separation between whites and blacks is not highlighted in the film, only brushed over, to illuminate David’s secretive and ostensibly devious occupation.  He and his friend Danny (Dominic Cooper is perfect) make a living by acting, it seems, immorally.  Or, perhaps, amorally.  Their covert profession keeps them very wealthy, and if their significant others are none-the-wiser, then so much the better for it.  Danny speaks curtly to Jenny during one such business appointment, and we are quickly reminded that the place of women even as recent as the 60’s remained quite subservient to the male in some countries.

It is this environment that the film creates so deftly, revealing the societal and economic constraints of different pecuniary classes, a fact not lost on Jenny’s father, who demands academic perfection from her, in order that she make a living for herself, not for the sake of education itself.  As he says, becoming a famous author isn’t as good as knowing one.  It reveals everything we need to know about his intentions and his principles.  Her mother’s role is diminutive by comparison, again elucidating the minor role of women in mid-20th century English society.

The writing is superb, the dialogue impeccable – coming from Nick Hornby, what do you expect?  The directing is straightforward and honest (though allowing a very kitschy montage at one point), allowing the actors to perform on the screen as they might on the stage: exposed and vulnerable.  Carey Mulligan is exceptional as the artless yet remarkably discerning Jenny.  She is both candid and accessible; we relate to her as she comes of age in a number of ways, striding on through various rites of passage, with subtle strength and a touching femininity.  Not to mention, Rosamund Pike and Emma Thompson are both flawless, the former as Danny’s girl, the latter as Jenny’s mother.  There is an ex post facto accompaniment to one character that changes everything, though there are certainly several remaining ambiguities left unattended and unresolved, as perhaps they might actually have been in Jenny’s life.

Life is a journey full of decisions, some we can’t regret until years after we’ve made them. Sometimes, it is these decisions that end up changing us for the better, affecting our lives in ways we wouldn’t have dreamed or imagined.  This is a must see for everyone who has ever had to grow up or make a difficult decision.  That is, it’s a must see for everyone.

Rating: 3.5/4 Stars