An Education in love

By Brian Reinhart     11/12/09 6:00pm

Jenny, the protagonist of the new British film An Education, is no Lolita. She is just 16, yes, and she is seeing a man twice her age, but they are genuinely in love. The man, David, remains polite and demurs when Jenny says she wishes to remain a virgin. Their romance is a mutual adventure, not an exploitation. Or is it? The ambiguities of An Education, and the sympathy and suspense it adds to a story which could have been sensationalist, make it a beautiful film. Director Lone Scherfig (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself) and screenwriter Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch) did not aim to demonize the predatory older man or sentimentalize his prey, and the result is so subtle that for a few minutes we wonder if these characters are actually in love.

The plot is relatively simple. The relationship begins when David (Kinsey's Peter Sarsgaard) gives the teenage schoolgirl Jenny (Pride and Prejudice's Carey Mulligan) a ride home from her cello lesson. Soon the two start going to concerts, hobnobbing with David's rich friends and even bidding on art at auctions. It all seems very innocent and charming, save, of course, for the enormous age difference.

Questions eventually arise that trouble the viewers before they begin to worry Jenny herself. Where does David get his money, or his uncanny ability to tell a convenient lie? Why is he offering to take her to Paris? But the questions go unanswered, the affair continues and the happy couple becomes serious.

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The affair is allowed to carry on because Jenny's parents are charmed off their feet by their daughter's new interest. Her father, especially (Alfred Molina of Chocolat), is old-fashioned and a little slow on the uptake, but there is more to his character than mere comic relief.

If this description of the movie seems short or unhelpful, that is because there is too much mystery and suspense in this plot to give much more away. Yes, our initial instinct is that David is creepy, but his performance gradually chips away at these instincts. Slowly, suspensefully, the events of the story reveal his true character. We know who Jenny is from the first scene, but David is an enigma, a charmer who only reveals the man behind the mask as a last resort.

Their relationship is extraordinary largely because of the outstanding acting of Sarsgaard and Mulligan. Sarsgaard is pitch-perfect as a charmer whose eyes scan Jenny's figure longingly, but whose presence and speech are almost uncomfortably endearing. Jenny herself is wide-eyed as she realizes that, for the first time, she is in love.

Thanks to this movie, Mulligan will become a superstar. She is Audrey Hepburn reincarnated, a mischievous, lovable girl whose inner beauty shines through in every scene. Her character is charming but shy, innocent but knowing, deeply intelligent yet still all too na've. The kind of performance that wins Academy Awards, so to speak.

Mulligan is especially effective at depicting Jenny's transformation over the course of the movie. And her journey is what makes the story more than just a sordid tale of an adult man sweeping an underage girl off her feet. This is not a depressing film about exploitation; it is ultimately the story of a girl forced to discover her moral compass. And An Education is its perfect title.

Scherfig, in just her second English-language film, exhibits a master's touch, letting the story unfold at a perfect pace. No characters, even bit parts, are underdeveloped. The soundtrack is stupendous and costumes are excellent, with Jenny's dresses at social occasions consciously, and correctly, evoking the fashions of Hepburn.

The strength of An Education, though, is not just that it tells its story so well, but that it does not tell the story we expect. A tabloid treatment might have resulted in a disturbingly sexual potboiler. Instead, An Education stays honest and follows a girl's growth, for better or for worse, and her maturity into an independent adult. The movie is touching where it could have been creepy and real when it could have been sensational.

The ending of this story is, perhaps, a little too simple, and Jenny's ultimate decision seems as innocent as her acceptance of David's offer for a date. But we know things have changed. "I feel old," Jenny tells her teacher in one of the final scenes, "but not wise." To know oneself so well is a wisdom most cinematic characters never achieve.

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