AN EDUCATION (Lone Scherfig 2009)

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MULLIGAN, SARSGAARD, AND THE BRISTOL

Lone Scherfig: An Education (2009)

Swinging London made easy -- too easy

Review by Chris Knipp


[POSSIBLE-SPOILERS]

The young Carey Mulligan is sprightly and charming and does look a bit like Audrey Hepburn in this period drama about a bright, pretty 16-year-old suburban London schoolgirl who with a show of reserve gives in to the seduction, cultural and sexual, of David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard), a thirty-something man of dubious intent and questionable livelihood. He's a smiling gangster, really, though the storytelling shows some skill in revealing the ugliness only in little gradual bits until bam! Comes the big shocker. Not that, by then, it's much of a surprise.

David rescues Jenny (Ms. Mulligan) and her cello from a heavy downpour -- already his sleek purple Bristol car is a strong hint of his subtle mixture of poshness and sleaze -- and before she can say "I'm a virgin" he's taking her to classical concerts, auctions of Burne-Jones paintings, and jazz clubs with free-flowing champagne. With them are David's cohort and "business partner" Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny's dumb blonde girlfriend Fanny (Rosamund Pike). Danny's sleeker and more handsome than David and where he lives is packed with handsome artworks. We don't see where David lives, and when we do, we find out why.

Helen, who's never read a book, let alone Camus, exists to set off Jenny's intelligence and would-be sophistication. Jenny listens to Juliette Greco's smoky chansons, gratuitously spouts French, quotes the French existentialist, and dreams of Paris -- anything to escape this dull country (which has not begun to swing yet, since its only 1961). She's not so good at Latin, but at her girl's school her literature teacher Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) appreciates her and wants passionately for her to go to "read English" at Oxford, a phrase the film explains so insistently you'd think academic British were a completely foreign language too.

What's a bit hard to believe in this otherwise routine tale, based on a memoir by writer Lynn Barber and turned into an easy-to digest screenplay by Nick Hornby, is the way Jenny's parents go along with the idea of David, this mysterious and oily older man, taking their college-prep daughter off to fancy watering places unchaperoned; he tells a string of lies to soften them up, some of them unbelievably crude, like his remark when first introduced to Jenny's mom, "You didn't tell me you had a sister." This compliance is justified by the fact that for her mother Marjorie (Cara Seymour) and timid but bumptuous dad Jack (Alfred Molina), marriage to a man with money, which David evidently has, wherever it comes from, is as good as going to university, maybe better. In any case, Jenny doesn't keep any of what's going on a secret; in fact she boasts of it to her classmates, and the teachers know too. The only sign that all morals haven't been relaxed yet is the headmistress (a wasted Emma Thompson), who sees Jenny as disqualifying herself for Oxford, the school, or respectable life.

Carey Mulligan blooms before our eyes in this movie, and it's worth watching for that. There's a squirmy pleasure in observing her scenes with Peter Sarsgaard, and David is a good role for him. This is a character who is always acting so if Sarsgaard never seems natural that well fits the part. The whole trouble with An Education is that everybody gets off too easy. David, whose declared Jewishness almost seems like evil type-casting, is a thoroughly despicable person when we really get to know him: how come he just gets to slither away? Jenny never suffers any lasting ill effects of her misbehavior even though everybody knows about it. Conflicting morals in early Sixties England are never a hardship for her or well dramatized in Hornby's simplistic plot. She's never confused, and it all turns out just fine. Good for her, but it leaves one with a queasy feeling not only because of the reptilian behavior of the boyfriend but because consequences are simply ignored, unlike in the much more hardscrabble film about a young girl's virginity actually made in 1961, Tony Richardson's fine A Taste of Honey (written by Shelagh Delaney). How can Jenny be a heroine, if she has no real challenges to face? This doesn't feel like 1961 London, after all. It's just another modern take on a sassy young woman's premature liberation.

The front of Lynn Barber's book says, "My life would have turned out differently if I'd just learned to say no..."

That pretty much sums it up, wouldn't you say?

Indeed.

AN EDUCATION

Directed by Lone Scherfig, U.K., (2009), 100 minutes

A charming 35-year-old man romances a naive 16-year-old high school student in An Education, one of ten films nominated for Best Picture at the 2010 Oscars. The film, directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by Nick Hornby, is based on the real life memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber who had a similar affair when she was 16. Set in the London suburb of Twickenham in 1961 before the Beatles “invasion”, An Education stars Carey Mulligan in a breakout performance as Jenny Mellor, a highly intelligent, articulate, and witty young lady who has been working towards acceptance at Oxford when she gets sidetracked by the appeal of bourgeois pleasures.

The film works mainly because of her lovely and appealing presence that cajoles the viewer to be on her side and root for her and earned her an Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category. Peter Sarsgaard plays the smooth-talking “hit man” and, though he is involved in a rather dubious pursuit, the film is not sleazy but romantic and fun. Jenny loves everything French especially French blues and Burne-Jones art, is bored with her studies, and is not challenged by her only male friend, a young boy named Graham (Matthew Beard). Dominated by a conservative father (Alfred Molina), Jenny’s longing for more excitement and adventure in her life takes shape when an older man, David, (Sarsgaard) gives her a lift to get her cello out of the rain.

Telling her that he graduated from “the University of Life”, David is persistent in getting the young girl to date him, ultimately giving Jenny a taste of the excitement she is craving. He takes her to classical concerts, upscale restaurants, foreign movies, and art auctions along with his business associate Danny (Dominic Cooper) and girlfriend Helen (Rosamund Pike) whom he tells Jenny’s parents is her chaperon. In a revealing night club scene, Jenny is mesmerized and she feels fully alive when she hears a sultry singer delivering a torch song that reminds her of the Juliette Greco records she plays alone in her bedroom. After getting permission from her father to go with David to visit Oxford and then to Paris, Jenny thinks that David is the most fun person she has ever met and rejects the warnings delivered to her by the school’s head mistress (Emma Thompson) whose main objection to David seems to be that he’s Jewish and her uptight English teacher (Olivia Williams), both stereotypical school marms.

Unfortunately, Jenny’s parents are presented as one-dimensional suburbanites who never question the appropriateness of her 16-year-old daughter being courted by a man approaching middle age. Even Jennie does not question David’s motives at least until he shows off by encouraging her to place bids for him at an auction house which is more about money rather than art. It does not help either when he admits to her that his work is to move blacks into an area then buy up the houses when the Caucasians move out. "Schwartzes have to live somewhere," he tells Jenny. This will not be the end of revelations she will discover her about her beau.

Though he admires Jenny and genuinely enjoys her company, David’s interest seems primarily physical. While he respects Jenny holding onto her virginity until she is 17, he is nonetheless eager to view her breasts and engage in condescending activities such as indulging in baby talk by assigning nicknames. While Jenny has opened herself to new experiences, she has cluttered her mind with desires that cannot be fulfilled and has barely given a thought to the world around her and the contribution she could potentially make. Even though An Education is solid entertainment, well acted and directed and full of life, it is unadventurous and fails to probe its subject matter beyond a superficial rendering of the difference between bourgeois and bohemian ways of life, or the valid struggle many young people have between the demands of society or their own conscience and their longing for freedom and pleasure.

GRADE: B+

I was not as taken with this movie as others have been. I felt that the young actress Katie Jarvis in Fish Tank delivered a more interesting "breakout" ingenue performance in a more authentic film. Alfred Molina can be seen in a much more interesting role and performance in the current Donmar Warehouse production transferred to Broadway of Red, about the creative struggles of the Sixties artist Mark Rothko, and Olivia Williams can be seen in an infinitely more interesting role as Pierce Brosnan's wife in The Ghost Writer. I did not remember that David used the Jewish terms for blacks, "Schwartzes." Interesting detail, hopefully authentic for the English Jews of that time. This distasteful character gives Sarsgaard an opportunity to display his ability to be icky.

Thanks Chris. You seem to be saying in your review that there should be consequences for both Jenny and David. What sort of consequences were you thinking of?

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What sort of consequences were you thinking of?

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Not good ones, obviously. But perhaps I've exaggerated. I just find the man repulsive. She was lucky; she got to go on to Oxford and have a very successful journalistic career afterward. And I don't begrudge her that. After all, she did get "an education." That may have been punishment enough. Being conned is no fun.

Maybe the film doesn't show it, but in life he was more in love with her than she with him, by her account, anyway, and was distressed when it ended, However, he was guilty of some crimes, perhaps many, and was ready to commit bigamy. He might have gone to jail on more than one occasion, but he was a slick operator.