An Education
The overtly simplistic drama An Education primly provides more cinematic contradiction than, well, an education. The tiny movie features a handful of positive attributes, but it ends up in a dully dependable place with little to say or do. It travels a worn path and refuses to take an unexpected step, so that even the funny and engaging moments littered throughout feel rather fluffy and predictable by the movie's end. But at the same time, the cast is uniformly impressive and Nick Hornby's partially programmed screenplay does contain some very witty dialogue. The good arrives at the expense of the bad and so An Education eventually becomes trapped by its own intentions.
Set in 1960s London, the story follows well-educated high school student Jenny (Carey Mulligan, delivering an excellent performance that has already been generating Oscar buzz for months), whose dreams of attending Oxford are put on hold when she meets a tall, dark, and handsome stranger named David (Peter Sarsgaard, putting his droopy-eyed charisma to acceptable use). David is suave, interesting, exciting, and amazingly wealthy. He is instantly smitten with Jenny and so it isn't long before the pair engage in a classy courtship.
David takes Jenny to nightclubs with his friends (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike, offering another pair of wonderful performances), treats her to fancy dinners, and even whisks her away to Paris. Suddenly, Jenny's educational studies seem far too boring when compared to her newly energetic lifestyle. David is so cool and collected that he even manages to charm Jenny's father (Alfred Molina, stealing most of his scenes), a man as married to tradition as he is to his wife (Cara Seymour, also very good in her role).
Jenny's dad is entirely focused on his daughter's education and hopes she will eventually fall into the arms of a wealthy man, so when David comes along and meets his criteria, it suddenly matters a whole lot less that Jenny may be throwing away her plans to attend Oxford. For a moment, life is seemingly falling into place for Jenny. Intoxicated by the new lifestyle that David offers, she cannot help but be overly happy. Of course, everything is working out so well for Jenny that it is inevitable that a snag will occur along the way.
It is here, in the story's obvious twists and turns, that An Education begins to fall apart. This kind of story has been told so many times before that it requires something special and memorable to shake it out of its doldrums. Instead, director Lone Scherfig's refusal to think outside of the box renders the whole affair nearly generic. The acting is great, but Hornby and Sherfig paint the story into a corner and discover there's no way out but down. Essentially, the movie seems to say that all you need to get your life back on track is an inspiring, musically-driven montage sequence. If only life were so simple! Frustratingly, for Jenny, it kind of is.
An Education lacks imagination and dramatic ingenuity to the point where the movie just falls flat. Scherfig's direction has a gentle feel to it and the absence of a distracting style is very pleasant, but despite these positive accomplishments, she fails to ground the story in an emotionally satisfying manner. It simply floats along without making much of an impression. The movie has an awkward flow that leads to an unravelling of the narrative during the careless conclusion. These problems ultimately sink the movie, but it is unfair to dismiss An Education without paying attention to the solid performances.
Mulligan, Molina, and Pike are especially fantastic in their roles, each providing the movie's most entertaining moments. Mulligan delivers a breakout performance, Molina flaunts his dramatic chops, and Pike is often hilarious as a clueless woman having a good time. Pike has certainly come a long way since her robotic performances in the lazy action movies Die Another Day and Doom. But for all of An Education's talent in front of the camera, the story cannot help but crack and crumble. The movie's contradictory nature rears its ugly head and there's no way a simple montage sequence can rescue the movie from its own fate. There is some good and there is some bad, but it all feels a little too uneducated in the end.
