Moviola > Films > An Education

An Education (12A)   95 mins

Director:  Lone Scherfig

Screenplay:  Nick Hornby from Lynn Barber's memoir

Cinematography:  John de Borman

Original music:  Paul Englishby

It's 1961 and bright, attractive 16-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is poised on the brink of womanhood, dreaming of a Gauloise-scented existence as she sings along to Juliette Greco in her Twickenham bedroom.  Stifled by the tedium of adolescent routine, she can't wait for adult life to begin.  Her life is turned around one rainy day when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard).  Urbane, witty and twice her age, he manages to charm Jenny's conservative parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour), and introduces her to a glittering new world of classical concerts and late-night suppers with his attractive friend and business partner Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny's beautiful but vacuous girlfriend Helen (Rosamund Pike).  A weekend in Oxford is followed by a jaunt to Paris for Jenny's seventeenth birthday.  Her parents believe David's aunt will be there as a chaperone, not knowing that Jenny has chosen the time and place to lose her virginity.  On her return, her friends are impressed by her new-found sophistication, but her headmistress (Emma Thompson) is appalled, and her history teacher (Olivia Williams) is deeply disappointed that her star pupil seems determined to throw away her certain chance of higher education.  Just as her family's dream of getting her into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by a different sort of life.  Will David be the making of Jenny, or her undoing?

Oscar nominations: Best Motion Picture of the Year, Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey; Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Carey Mulligan; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published, Nick Hornby.

Carey Mulligan also won a BAFTA for Best Actress.

"Here's an irresistible tale of seduction in which innocence and intellect are the prize stakes. Nick Hornby's disarmingly clever script about the corruption of ideals and first love, bursts into life under Lone Scherfig's tantalising direction, capturing every nuance of the delicious journey in which we are about to partake. It's a stylish, spellbinding and blatantly funny film that reminds us of how blinkered love is and how impressionable we are when temptation wafts by sweetly, like an alluring French perfume."  Urban Cinefile

"An Education depends on a British actress named Carey Mulligan, who in her first major feature role is being compared by everyone with Audrey Hepburn. When you see her, you can't think of anyone else to compare her with. She makes the role luminous when it could have been sad or awkward. She has such lightness and grace, you're pretty sure this is the birth of a star."  Roger Ebert

"Intelligent and hugely enjoyable"  The Independent

For more information, and to see a trailer and stills, visit the official website at  www.sonyclassics.com/aneducation

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Last modified: 09-Jun-2010

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