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An Education stars Carey Mulligan as a young girl named Jenny who has always been taught to prepare herself for college. Her focus is always on her education, and her father (Alfred Molina) pushes her to succeed so she can one day study at Oxford. His encouragement is always calculated, though. He wants her to play an instrument, but not practice it, so she can list it as an interest on her college application but not waste her time on it, hence giving her more time to study Latin.

Jenny is very intelligent and practical. She understands what her father wants for her, and she seems to want it too, but she is not immune to dreams (in which she would live in Paris and speak only French and listen to French music all the time). She follows her father's instructions carefully, but when he isn't paying attention, she's singing along to French records and smoking with her girlfriends. One rainy day, a young man gifts her a lift home. He finds out she is going to play in a school concert and sends her flowers to wish her luck. In Jenny, he sees someone he would like to expose to the arts and the great big world, and starts off by offering to take her to a classical concert.

The man, David (played by Peter Sarsgaard) is incredibly charming. At first, one can't quite tell whether he is interested in dating Jenny or if he simply wants to share his world with her because he understands her interest in it. He manages to pacify her parents and takes her out to some exciting places, always showing her the greatest respect. But once he manages to get her away for a weekend it's apparent that he is definitely interested in her, and isn't quite as perfect as she once thought.

It's possible I have started becoming susceptible to girlie movies, but I'd like to think An Education would appeal to more than just girls, although I think girls are more likely to identify with it. The character of Jenny is such a complicated one, played by Carey Mulligan so well. I recognized her but couldn't place her, and then later realized she was in several Masterpiece Theater features. Jenny is young, spirited, naive, intelligent, and thoughtful. As I said before, she isn't immune to dreaming, and the world that David has given her is as good as or better than her dreams. She has a head on her shoulders, but does not have enough experience behind her, and her youth is evident when she refuses to heed the advice of her teachers, who want her to continue her studies for Oxford. Her portrayal of Jenny keeps the audience cautiously empathetic, rather than simply looking down on her for her naive responses. Most of all, though, I think the movie authentically captures what a young girl would feel in Jenny's circumstances. Her slowly budding relationship with David feels intimate and real, so much so that I felt an urge to protect her.

I also appreciated the enigmatic nature of David and the slow way his personality is revealed. It takes us a while to figure out what his intentions are with Jenny and also to figure out what he does for a living. I was glad there were slight moments where he felt a little bit off. These were awkward and may have creeped out some of the audience, but I felt they were key in establishing what sort of person he was, so that the last act of the movie didn't feel forced.

I loved the flow of this movie all the way until the final five minutes, which jumped into a narrated montage. It moved too quickly, and the narration felt out of place. It almost felt as if all of the interesting bits were over and the writer or director decided to just wrap up the story. It was the first moment when I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this must have been a book originally." Aha. Yes, it was a novel, by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity). I think the same ending could have been told in a different way. Nevertheless, the appeal of Mulligan still helped sell that ending. I'm going to be keeping an eye out for her in the future, for certain.

Other notable appearances in An Education featured Emma Thompson, Olivia Williams, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, and Sally Hawkins. It was a film full of talent, from the actors to the screenplay, and other than my stylistic complaint about the ending, I think An Education was one of the better movies of the year.