Concrete Playground

Every once in a while a film comes along that makes us wish to be a school girl in 1960s London being romanced by a much-older man who, although guided by a skewed moral compass, is the perfect person with which to explore the best and worst of what adulthood can mean.

Unfortunately, An Education is not that film.

Psych! An Education is totally that film. In fact, you’ll find yourself identifying with so many contradictory characters that it will send you into spasms of recognition. All of us have been a Jenny (Carey Mulligan) – bored but not boring, fighting conservatism while on the path to good-on-paper success – and all of us have also been a David (Peter Sarsgaard), joyfully exploiting life’s shortcuts and in love with the idea of an escape. 

When the two meet by chance and fall into a relationship, all sorts of complications arise. Scriptwriter Nick Hornby is too clever to rely on a familiar exploited/exploiter dynamic for the schoolgirl and her fatherly lover. Jenny is loaded with a fierce integrity to offset her vulnerability, and Peter proves to be a seductive, shadow-type figure for both Jenny and her repressed father Jack (Alfred Molina).

That the film’s Danish director, Lone Scherfig, is married to a psychologist is a very relevant side-note. The characters’ deep-seated complexities are next-level, but an uncomplicated plot and understated acting from nearly every cast member makes An Education something like a lesson in sweet, neat cinema. 

By Millie Stein