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You may recognise Carey Mulligan as one of the orphans from the BBC's Bleak House adaptation, or as Sally Sparrow in that fantastic Doctor Who episode with the moving statues. In a few months time you'll almost certainly be seeing her at the Oscars®. As impressive as she was on TV, few would have predicted such a meteoric rise, and it is a testament to her stunning performance in this 1960s-set coming of age tale.
She plays Jenny, a bored teenager set for an Oxford education, who is seduced and led astray after a chance meeting with a man twice her age. Comparisons to Audrey Hepburn are a little premature, but Mulligan delivers a performance of such charm, elegance and natural effervescence that she not only competently carries the entire film on her young shoulders, but raises it to a higher level. She reminded me of Kate Winslet's debut in Heavenly Creatures, and Mulligan could well go on to become just as successful.
Let us not get carried away too much though, since Mulligan is aided tremendously by a role to sink her teeth into: Jenny is an intelligent, strong minded, yet not entirely faultless character, and there are times when we both feel for her and want to scream at her. Another of the film's great assets is Nick Hornby's witty script, which deftly balances Jenny's teenage angst with a rich seam of awkward humour while casting an eye over the hypocrisy of 1960s education and sexual politics. The scenes between Jenny and her headmistress (played by Emma Thompson doing Emma Thompson) are particularly wonderful, as she asks the question with which the film is preoccupied: what is the point of scholarly education? Although perhaps more relevant to a girl in 1960s England, in today's world where degrees are everywhere yet jobs are scarce it remains a universal concern for most students.
As a coming of age story, it follows a fairly typical template, which Hornby acknowledges with knowing references to Jane Eyre, the book Jenny is studying in class. Jenny's entrance into a world of careless indulgence and sensory pleasure also recalls a certain other British film from this Autumn: Dorian Gray. The similarities extend to the performances: as David, the charismatic yet slightly creepy seducer, Peter Sarsgaard seemed to be doing an impression of Colin Firth. But while that film was tacky, overblown yet somehow as boring as Dorian himself, An Education entertains with subtlety and charm, relying on wit and real emotions rather than melodrama.
Sarsgaard impresses at both the sly and charming sides of his character, making it clear why Jenny would fall for him, while the rest of the fine cast all do sterling work. The ever-watchable Alfred Molina makes Jenny's overbearing father sympathetic; Rosamund Pike is hilarious as one of David's vapid, anti-intellectual friends; and Dominic Cooper finally portrays a character, not just sex on legs. Finally, although it seems unfair to take the final word from Carey Mulligan, special mention must go to York student Matthew Beard, who gives a fantastic comedic performance as Jenny's hapless admirer. Stealing many of the film's funniest scenes, and adding this to his already impressive resumé, An Education has not just one, but two stars in the making.
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