What do you do if you see a 16-year-old girl standing alone in the rain? If you said pick her up, then 1. You’re a pervert and 2. You’ve stumbled upon the plot of An Education. Sure there are other scenes and other plot lines but for the purposes of my joke we’re going to pretend as if that’s all it involves.
An Education is the story of Jenny, played by Carey Mulligan, the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn. One particular scene makes it impossible to not make the comparison. Jenny is in a big hurry to grow up. She’s smarter than everyone she knows and has the potential to become anything she wants. Even though it’s 1961 Britain and the glass ceiling is still firmly in place. Jenny’s parents have been grooming her for to attend Oxford. Her dad, played beautifully by Alfred Molina, allows her to do nothing unless it helps with her Oxford application.
Everything seems to be going according to plan when a rain storm comes along and with it creepy David, played by creepy Peter Sarsgaard, and his shiny sports car. He rescues Jenny from the storm and tells the impressionable 16-year-old everything she wants to hear.
In stories like this there is often a victim. It’s usually the girl. What makes this movie stand apart from Lifetime Network fare is that Jenny never sees herself as a victim. Although David’s intentions are pretty clear from the beginning you never feel as if he truly takes advantage of Jenny. In fact it is likely the opposite. Jenny is desperately searching for her role as a woman in the ’60s. She has prepared her entire life for Oxford but she’s not sure why. What can she become? David is her way out of her tedious life and boring future. He can take her to Paris for a weekend or shopping any afternoon she wishes. He’s everything that a girl like her needs to get exactly what she wants. Things she likely won’t be able to do on her own.
The beauty of An Education is the way the film portrays her relationship with David as just that–an education. She travels through their encounters as if turning pages in her Latin book. She studies David’s face every time he asks to go a little further. She wonders what will come. Mulligan has a calculating look that says, “I know how this can go but let’s see if something else might happen.” The power of her acting is in her face.
Sure, sometimes she fails and David wins or the school wins or her parents win but she figures out how she lost. She changes her tactics. She reevaluates and then she conquers. She never lets herself become a victim. Everything is an education with Jenny. Everything makes her smarter and stronger.
The film is based on British journalist Lynn Barber’s memoir of the same name. After the movie I was dying to read some of her work. Looking at her Wikipedia page Lynn Barber seems as intimidating as her on screen persona.
This movie is guaranteed to be a big award winner and rightfully so. It’s refreshing to see a movie where a child like Jenny is in charge of her destiny. Most films like this create characters too dependent on adults to guide them. But how can a kid learn if they aren’t allowed to make their own mistakes.
