An Education

I am proud to say that I finally watched the last movie that was nominated at this years Oscar Awards that I had yet to see. Before every Oscar show, I make it a point to see all the nominated pictures in the category, however this year I was behind one. I finally saw this film and it was definitely worth the wait. An Education is a unique, compassionate and beautiful story of a young girl's journey trying to grow up in the world she was born into. It is the accumulating story of how love, education and family all fight against one another. Its the love story of Jenny and David, come along for their journey.

The Good: Carey Mulligan had a wonderful performance in this film. Rightly so, she was nominated for best actress at this years Oscar show. She truly demonstrated the coming of age story of this young girl in London fighting to get out of the dull life she has been surrounded by her entire life. She starts out the film by looking like a young sixteen year old girl. She wears clothes that hang loose to her body and her hair is not styled covering her face with bangs. As she stands on the side of the road with her cello, she is the picture of a young girl stuck in a mundane life that goes through the strokes of each day. However, her smile made each scene brighter and provided a critical emotion that the character often feels. When with David this smile expresses naive flattery. After meeting an older man, she is exposed to beautiful things she never knew existed like jazz clubs, auctions, and exquisite clothing. She matures beautifully throughout the film. Not only does she wear new clothing but her entire demeanor changes when dating this older man. She comes to know what she wants, who she is and in essence becomes a stronger young woman from it all. What I enjoyed was seeing how truly different societal standards were in the 40s. Women had few options in their life so it was essential they made the right choices. Peter Sarsgaard had a wonderful performance as well. Someone who did not know of him would completely believe he was actually English. He was the picture of a charming English man. He nailed the complex character as the charming yet cunning character of David. He uses his sweet smile, money and charm to not only win over Jenny's parents but Jenny herself as she falls in love with him. Each character was cast perfectly. The airhead yet greedy girlfriend of David's friend, David's playful best friend and business partner, the innocent and loving young suitor trying to win Jenny's heart but has no chance of it, Jenny's plain mother who desires more excitement and the powerful demeanor depicted through Jenny's father. One key aspect of the film that I enjoyed was the setting they depicted in each scene that corresponded with Jenny's emotions. At the beginning of the film, the scenes are grey and depressing. Her home and town are boring and lack any color. Not only is her uniform grey but the rest of her life is as well. As the movie carries on, the scenes are depicted with stronger and brighter colors. Especially scene in the trip to Paris, her smile is radiant and the objects around her are as well. The director did a perfect job of associating her mood with the places she surrounded herself in. Something that I enjoyed in the film was how tasteful it was. Even though "The Reader" was a personal favorite of mine, An Education portrayed the young/old lovers differently. Rather than exposing everything and making their relationship solely based on sex, these scenes were done tastefully to not make the audience uncomfortable when watching such a young girl with an older man. The ending was so beautiful and the overall narrative left me touched and inspired as a young woman myself making the right choices in my life. The underlying meaning of the film was woman empowerment and the amazing opportunities education brings to women and how the cloud of love can so easily fool young girls. After working her entire life to get into Oxford University, she was so ready to throw it all away to marry the man she was so in love with. The film touches on issues still present in society today through a beautiful coming of age story.

The Bad: I only have a two critiques. One was that at times it was difficult, as an American, to understand some of the British terms, however, those terms made the film authentic. Me as a true American is stupid to these cultural differences and it left me confused at times. My other critique was of the SPOILER ALERT! scene in which Jenny finds out that David is actually married. The man who she is engaged to, threw her education away for and so strongly trusted was a liar. Everything she knew was a lie. I just thought that this scene was a little anti-climatic. With her parents sitting in the back seat and David on the phone, Jenny finds mail with David and his wife's name on it. She finds it so quickly and immediately yells at him to go home. The viewer did not see what was on the mail so I was personally a little confused. She randomly looks in the globe box, sees some papers then screams to be taken home.

The Ugly: No ugly in this film guys!

Overall, An Education was a wonderful film and left me wanting more. I give this film an A.