Movie: An Education

Being a fan of his books, and the screen adaptations of them, I was thoroughly looking forward to watching Nick Hornby’s latest spill into the big screen. Adapted from the memoirs of journalist, Lynn Barber, Hornby takes the reigns as screenplay writer for An Education, and I can describe it as nothing short of a British triumph.

Sixteen year old Jenny, played by Carey Mulligan (Pride & Prejudice, And When Did You Last See Your Father?) is an uber-bright, and mature for her age-seeming schoolgirl with a passion for classical music. 

Jenny’s parents Jack and Mary (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) are the epitome of conservative, assuming a future of Latin homework and applications to Oxford University for her. This combined with weedy swot boyfriend, Graham (Matthew Beard), means that Jenny can only dream of a more exciting life. When smooth-talking 30something stranger, David (Peter Sarsgaard) rescues her and her cello from the rain, she senses her world was about to change.

So begins David’s slow and calculated courting of Jenny. He is older and fascinating to her, so once he smarms his way past Jack and Mary, she finds herself relishing a new and exciting double life. Together with his obnoxious friends Danny and Helen, he treats Jenny to evenings of classical concerts, trendy late night jazz bars and as many Gauloise cigarettes as she can smoke.

After a trip to Paris on Jenny’s 17th birthday, the day she has chosen to lose her virginity, and a few home truths from David, it is only a matter of time before she realises that whilst her school studies have inevitably been suffering, life’s real lessons are much more arduous. Not least the one that ‘if something is too good to be true then it probably is’.

Despite the story being about an older man pursing a young woman, it's actually not quite as disturbing as it sounds. Jenny is far from being an unwilling victim. You can enjoy her hapless waltz into the exciting unknown as if you are there indulging in it all for yourself, fully aware what perils may await. It’s a classic flawed love story, and is littered with intelligent and witty lines to guide you through.

The acting throughout is exceptional. Sarsgaard delivers a superb Jude Law-esque performance, executing likeable, charming, and slimy all at once. Mulligan is thoroughly convincing in her coming of age, switching from pretentious and spunky virgin to weathered and embittered socialite with a bounty of ease. It has gone down a storm in the film festivals, with Mulligan being tipped for greatness. Emma Thompson’s cameo as the disapproving headmistress is also flawless, which must have been a relief after Hornby’s last collaboration with Thompson had to be stopped short because "we just couldn't get right.”

Danish director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) and his team impressively transform his film set from London in the noughties to an authentic-feeling 1962. The costumes were like clothes of people in old photos, the architecture on display was lacking the concrete atrocities still to come in the 1970s, and all the props could have been borrowed from my grandmother’s loft.

If it is a chick flick you are looking for, then An Education won’t disappoint, but it has a lot more to offer than that. I’d say this is a sure signal that more than ever British cinema has still got it.