FILM REVIEW: AN EDUCATION
REVIEWED BY DON PERLGUT

THERE is a very good reason why the film An Education currently has one of the highest box office takings per cinema screen in Australia: it’s a lovely, warm-hearted and crowd-pleasing film.

, way better than its promotional trailer indicates.

An Education is set in London circa 1961, and tells a coming-of-age story of 16-year-old Jenny Miller (Carey Mulligan), who is befriended, romanced and ultimately seduced by a charming, suave, but sly and distinctly underhanded older man, David Goldman (played by Peter Sarsgaard).

Mulligan –- who played Kitty Bennett in the 2005 movie version of Pride and Prejudice -– is nothing short of breathtaking in this role, frequently reminding me of a young Audrey Hepburn.

She has enormous range and is absolutely convincing in the dual requirements of this role, which makes the film work: she is both highly intelligent but naive enough to be swept off her feet.

Jenny is in her final years of study at a private girls’ school, with her heart set on studying English literature at Oxford.  But she is caught in a time of few choices for women: get married, become a teacher or enter a low-level civil service job.

Her role models do not appear very enticing:  her English teacher appears to be bitter about teaching less than brilliant students, and her parents see few opportunities for her.

But once Jenny has had a brief taste of “high life” dates with David, she becomes increasingly willing to drop her academic pursuits for a life of attending concerts, eating in nice restaurants and travelling to Paris.

Jenny is easily taken in by David’s friends, his business partner Danny (Dominic Cooper) and girlfriend Helen (Rosamund Pike, who played Jane Bennett in Pride and Prejudice).

David -– who charms not only Jenny, but also her stolid and unimaginative parents (winningly played by Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) -– is Jewish, as we find out in his first moments on screen.

This sets up an interesting anti-Semitism sub-theme of An Education.  Jenny -– absolutely ripe for rebellion against her unexciting lower-middle class life -– is not bothered at all by David’s religion, but a telling scene takes place when she tells Miss Walters, her school’s headmistress (played by Emma Thompson) that her boyfriend is Jewish.

“The Jews killed our Lord,” Walters immediately responds.  “We are all sorry about what happened to them during the war, but …”

To which Jenny’s ironic reply is, “Last I looked, our Lord was Jewish himself.”

The Jewish sub-theme is an uncomfortable one:  David is Jewish basically because he was in the original memoir by Lynn Barber (on which the film is based), but dramatically it also makes him an outsider, and it is certainly his “otherness” that partly attracts Jenny.

There is an underlying thread of discomfort throughout the film: an older man of mostly unknown means (he is a shady property manager, and other things besides) with a high school girl (she turns 17 during the course of the film) is not exactly PG entertainment.

But the film’s moral compass stays the course, and the film works because the lead actors are so believable -– Jenny shows an inner strength, maturity and emotional growth that persuade us she will indeed survive the experience with David.

An Education comes with an unusual pedigree: it is directed by Lone Scherfig, a Danish woman best-known for her Dogme avant-garde filmmaking technique (fortunately avoided in this film); and scripted by best-selling British author Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch, High Fidelity) based on Barber’s book, which is also entitled An Education and is available in Australian bookshops.

This character-driven film neatly captures the time and sense of place of pre-Beatles London, and provides an antidote to those who wish to avoid the end of the world in the just-opened 2012.

An Education is showing in cinemas nationally.