02/08/10 - An Education

An Education (2009, 95 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1174732/

An Education is the next Oscar movie I decide to watch. I really didn't know at all what to expect when I started this except that it was a Best Picture nomination and Carey Mulligan had a strong chance at getting the Best Actress Oscar.

Anyway, the film stars Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a British high school student in the 1960s looking to go to Oxford. Her parents have pretty much decided this for her: Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour). Instead, Jenny's life unexpectedly becomes intertwined with that of David (Peter Sarsgaard), a wealthy and older gentleman. David has friends of his own: Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike). The film follows Jenny's decision between life with David or going to Oxford.

Mulligan is great, that's easy to see. I'm unsure if she'll win the Oscar since a lot of time that becomes a "career achievement" award and they might figure she'll have another chance later in her career (being only 24 years old). I liked the acting of Sarsgaard and Cooper particularly as it was necessary that they played off of each other well and they did this. The other highlight in the cast is Molina who gives a great performance as Jenny's dad, even though his role is minor.

It's really an odd problem I have with An Education. At only 95 minutes, I felt like the movie would breeze by but instead it dragged. But that wasn't because it was slow or anything, it was instead that every scene seemed important. There weren't any "filler scenes" where I could just think about what I was watching, but rather I had to constantly stay on my toes for 95 minutes. It was odd that I was finding this to be a problem as some movies (usually action movies though) are nonstop and I don't get bored from it. But some reason here - perhaps the romantic nature of the film which isn't something I'm used to - the movie dragged on me.

As for how the whole movie plays out I really liked it. The only complaint I really had with how the story was presented (besides what I mentioned in the above paragraph) was how Jenny's school life wasn't shown enough. She had friends there and a boy that obviously liked her but these plot points seemed to just be dropped a ways into the movie. Notably I liked the character of Graham (Matthew Beard) but after one ill-fated scene involving him he was gone for the rest of the movie. I feel that had the movie sprinkled in a few "filler scenes" of Jenny with her classmates it would be a whole lot better. I know there were some but I don't feel there were enough. The plot of An Education is handled well though. The movie does build up its characters pretty well and create a good air of suspicion around David so that when the big twist is revealed it fits his character. As the movie moves from this point it somewhat falls apart but still remains enjoyable (though with losing David the movie does lose some of its fun). I honestly liked the story a lot more than I thought I would so that's a good thing.

Overall, I gave this film a 6/10. I thought the acting was overall really good with Mulligan, Molina, Sarsgaard, and Cooper all giving memorable performances. However, the unique complaint I have about An Education hurts it. I liked how well a lot of the plot points and the story itself was handled besides this, though.