Film Festival 09 - An Education
An Education
UK 2009, 95m
Director: Lone Scherfig
Festivals: Sundance, Berlin, Sydney 2009
Audience Award - World Cinema Drama, Sundance Film Festival
2009
"A celebration of intellectual curiosity and personal adventure
through a portrait of 16-year-old English girl's questionable
romance with a man twice her age, An Education is a wonderful film.
As a serious student in love with all things French who can't wait
to shake off the constraints of her sheltered suburban London
upbringing, circa 1961, Carey Mulligan shines in a captivating
performance. Lone Sherfig's emotionally pulsing, culturally
observant picture simply bursts with life& Based on a memoir by
British journalist Lynn Barber, Nick Hornby's droll, insightful
script deftly captures the inner life of a cloistered girl
selectively aware of the pleasures, both brainy and sensual,
awaiting in the larger world, but who remains restricted by her
blinkered parents in Twickenham and the constraints of a strict
girls' school&
The film puts great stock in the value of experience, of tasting
what life has to offer, of gaining wisdom through trial and error.
There are many reasons -- legal, moral and ethical -- to object to
David's [the older man played by Peter Sarsgaard] opportunistic
treatment of his impressionistic young charge. But the film assumes
the perspective of its protagonist, that, David's deceptions
notwithstanding, he has been someone very much worth knowing for
his wit, intelligence and sense of fun. And this is a film that is
nothing if not fun." - Todd McCarthy, Variety
"An almost painfully perfect recreation of early-60s London -
before it really became 60s London, that is& This is
marvelously well-constructed period entertainment with a feminist
bite." - Andrew O'Hehir, salon.com
www.aneducationfilm.com
