It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Nick Hornby. Every time people ask me for a movie that I would recommend, High Fidelity is always on my list, even if you hate Jack Black for being an overly cocky, mildly psychotic, rarely funny, Vince Vaughn if he was a short, fat, unkempt creeper with an unhealthy obsession with the 70’s and 80’s. So on pulling An Education from the box, the expectations were set pretty high and son of a bitch, it fucking delivered.
It’s really difficult to take a movie with this much character development and this much depth that requires such a big transition from everybody and actually make it work seamlessly. Too often, in order to help lead in easily to the desire ending, does a movie take some cheesy gimmick or bizarre twist of fate that is just too coincidental and a bit uncomfortable. As I write this review, I immediately think of the movie pull after this, which did just that. Shut up, I know I’m a day behind. It’s no fun to just snap your fingers and abandon your character completely, unless there’s a really good reason for it.
In An Education, that reason is because the lavish life of David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard), is just so tempting, so perfect, and is presented as an alternative to the status quo with such exquisite logic that despite knowing there’s probably some catch with it, you pray there’s not and that the movie just continues down this easy path because it’s just fun to watch the wild transformations of already captivating characters as a result of this whole new way of thinking.
It focuses on the story of Jenny (played PERFECTLY by Carey Mulligan, who I will forever see a modern day Audrey Hepburn every time I see her now), a 16-year old aspiring student whose parents are hell-bent on getting her into Oxford. As a result, her life is controlled by her father (Alfred Molina), who passes judgment on every action and person like religious parents in PTA meetings regarding After-Prom. It’s a life that Jenny is good at, but bored with; she understands the value of taking such a path, but feels like she’s missing the best parts of her life trying to secure a future she’s not certain she’ll know how to enjoy. So when the twice-her-age-and-seriously-not-a-pedophile-playboy David enters her life and introduces her to that world she feels she’s missed out on…and then some, she falls hook, line and sinker and to ensure that this new lifestyle is accepted, David craftily works over her parents too, waving his sparkly, bubbly charm in their face to the point where even they start chanting “school is over-rated.”
The amazing part about this movie is with all of this going on, it never loses sight of itself. Even through the glitz and glamour, every character remains smart enough to ask the hard questions and courteous enough to answer them (which is so often avoided for sake of escalating plot, see Brothers). It’s not a story of rebellion as much as a story of finding yourself and moving beyond the realm of “this is what everyone says is good for me so it must be true.” The question often comes up of if the safe future is worth risking for the fun, some-what irresponsible present and unlike those biased films that try to steer you one way or another, this one challenges itself with a refreshing honesty and immensely strong supporting arguments for both sides. It was just a smart fucking movie.
There is nothing about this movie I didn’t like. Every performance, every set (good God…some of those locations were insane), every twist, every debate, was spot on perfect and handled with incredible care. The chemistry was fantastic and the story was exceptionally paced and true to form. I can easily, easily recommend this as well as use it as a palette cleanser if needed. There was a point in this movie where I realized it would take effort for An Education to fall to a 9 and luckily it never took on that challenge. With the 5th perfect score of the BackLOG, I gladly award An Education with a 10/10.
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