Movies: Hot for teacher
England in the early 1960s was a time of new freedoms and exciting possibilities. It's an intoxicating environment for young Jenny to enter womanhood. A bright, vivacious 16-year-old aiming for Oxford, she is her family's only child and shining star. She's also mature for her years and eager to begin the journey into adult life.
When stylish, knowing David drives up in a maroon sports car and charms her off her feet, the 30-ish sophisticate seems like the ideal man to offer extracurricular tutoring. His life is a whirl of art auctions, orchestra concerts, thrilling bars and exciting, mysterious adult friends. He's a seductive combination of courtliness, shrewd intelligence and danger.
Novelist Nick Hornby delivers sharp material; his script, adapted from a memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber, sweeps aside the expected parental opposition in order to focus the story's central conflict. Jenny's parents are hypnotized by David's elegant manners and surprisingly willing to let him date Jenny. If this well-heeled real estate broker snaps her up, they reason, that's the Oxford tuition saved. Exceptionally bright but inexperienced, Jenny will have to decide for herself whether this suave older man is right for her, and choose what to do about it.
"An Education" is a vibrant portrait of England on the cusp of its postwar rebirth. The air seems luminous with possibility. David (Peter Sarsgaard) is an upstart breaking through the old class restrictions, an urbane and exotic creature, promising yet not entirely trustworthy. In his natty suits, Sarsgaard is cool and tempting, a confident gent with an alluring whiff of pagan decadence and sleaze. He makes asking for a tea biscuit seem sexualized.
Carey Mulligan, as Jenny, has the sunflower freshness of a child, yet she offers a mature, layered performance; she becomes a star before our eyes. She has self-assurance but she's corruptible; she lets us see how attractive a threatening lover can be. She blossoms into womanhood while her classmates are still bending over their textbooks.
Alfred Molina impresses as Jenny's father, a figure of middle-class probity who can bend his principles if it means landing a good deal for his family. Emma Thompson plays the toughest Brit since Winston Churchill as the head of Jenny's school, who sees only disaster ahead. But has she ever been whisked off to Paris for a weekend of jazz and romance?
Director Lone Scherfig keeps us guessing about David. He could be Jenny's beloved or her downfall. How can a film so light and playful, off-the-cuff and silly, be so achingly sad? "An Education" brings disharmonious elements together gracefully, creating a satisfactory unity and style. It rates an "A."
