An Education

Date watched- 26th February 2011

Genre; Drama
Year; 2009
Running Time; 1 hour 36 minutes
Director; Lone Scherfig
Written By; Nick Hornby (Screenplay), Lynn Barber (Memoir)
Actors; Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper et al.

Acting 4/5
Keeping my attention 2/4
Visuals/Direction 2/5
Story/Plot 3/6
Total 11/20

Plot

Jenny (Mulligan) is a bright 16 year old schoolgirl with aspirations of going to Oxford University, which is greatly encouraged by her parents. One chance meeting on the way back from Orchestra practice with the enigmatic David (Sarsgaard) plummets Jenny into an adult world she couldn’t have imagined. Being swept off her feet by David could prove to be the best thing for Jenny, or possibly the worst. Jenny is taken on a journey that will take her from being a girl to a woman and almost back again.

My Personal Views

I was very interested in watching this movie because of all the Oscar hype around it. I was amazed at how much a British movie could garner so much attention when usually the Oscars are drowned in big budget/big actor movies, with the odd low budget phenomenon creeping in. So I thought it must be pretty impressive to get so much attention. But it wasn’t until July last year that I bought the DVD off Amazon (23rd July 2010 to be precise); the main reason being the reduced price but also for this blog.

So I watched it back in August last year for the first time with anticipation, waiting for the great ‘An Education’. So what did I think? Well, granted the acting was superb, Mulligan was most defiantly a well deserved Oscar best actress nominee, I almost forgot that Sarsgaard was actually American and not from upper-middle class England and the entire supporting cast are well balanced and add something to the whole thing. But somewhere it’s not quite brilliant on the acting front but I just don’t know where, whether its that they are all stand alone actors and something doesn’t gel or there is something unbelievable about some of the acting I just cant put my finger on it.

The story moves along quite slowly once the first changes in Jenny’s character show, the movie is only one and a half hours long but it defiantly feels a little longer than that. Though it’s only 6 minutes in to the movie that Jenny and David meet so it has all the potential to be quick, maybe this was to spend more time on their relationship and Jenny’s journey but I just don’t know, it just didn’t strike a cord with me.

I like the music throughout and it mostly stirs up thoughts of the 60s for me, however the opening title music reminds me of my drive home on a Friday night from work and Simon Mayo on BBC radio 2, I’m sure anyone else who listens to him on a Friday drive time will know what I mean.

On watching this a second time around you start to notice much more detail than the first time; which for me includes the goofs and continuity errors (watch out for the Cello that turns itself around in the car!) and that for me is where this fails itself again. I don’t know this myself but apparently some of the historical accuracy is also off, but like I say that’s not I knew myself (good old IMDB)

Granted Mulligan is superb and in the Paris section she looks very Audrey Hepburn-esque. I predict great things for her in years to come.

Emma Thompson is a welcome inclusion in the supporting cast, and it was nice to see her in something where she wasn’t all craggy faced (Harry Potter, Nanny McPhee) along with Olivia Williams and the actors playing Jenny’s parents all great.

In conclusion good verging on excellent acting, good music, poor direction in places and a bit slow. Though I have to admit its ok as a whole, but I wouldn’t want to be watching it all the time. In all I’m glad I’ve seen it and now know what all the hype was about, this is obviously what the Academy were looking for, but for me not so much.

The ending is also lovely and shows that if you want something bad enough and you work for it you will be rewarded.

Outcome

Currently lying in the pile of DVDs and books destined for eBay, sorry.