Sonic Cinema

Sounds, Visions and Insights by Brian Skutle

An Education

Grade : A Year : 2009 Director : Lone Scherfig Running Time : 1hr 40min Genre :
Movie review score
A

After months of buzz, awards, and finally, Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Actress, and Screenplay, I finally went into “An Education” knowing, well, not really what to expect.

The result was the type of indie experience that feels all too rare nowadays. Short of expectation it isn’t, but “An Education” succeeds with smart writing, directing, and acting that not only serves the story but also captures a time and place effortlessly.

The film so brilliantly evokes London in the 1960s it could’ve easily been made then. But this isn’t stogy period filmmaking. Courtesy of newcomer Lone Scherfig’s direction and author Nick Hornby’s script, this story is just as alive as if it were set in the here and now.

As Jenny, the 16 year-old schoolgirl whose life is thrown for a few loops when she begins an unexpected romance with a 35 year-old man (the superb and seductive Peter Sarsgaard), newcomer Carey Mulligan delivers a clever and intelligent performance that carries the film through situations that a lesser movie would have turned into movie-of-the-week melodrama. She nails every shade of grey in “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy” author Hornby’s script as we follow Jenny along that tightrope between youth and adulthood, maturity and naivete, and the type of life we want and the life the outside world offers us. It’s a beautifully-crafted film, based on the memoirs of Lynn Barber, and the type of film we don’t see often enough- an entertaining and enlightening indie film.

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