One of the downsides of having long watchlists on various streaming services is I don’t always get to everything on them before they leave. Some services, like HBO and Shudder, are actually pretty good about showing what will or won’t be leaving the service soon. Others, like Netflix, I have to find an article or guess.
In the case of An Education, I found an article saying it leaves Netflix at the end of the month, so here we are.
Jenny Mellor (Carey Mulligan) is a bright 16 year old from a middle class neighborhood. Her demanding father (Alfred Molina) runs a tight ship with the overall goal to get her into Oxford. She plays the cello in young orchestra and practices her French. One day, while stuck waiting for a bus in a driving rain storm, she meets a charming older man named David (Peter Sarsgaard). He offers her ride, and he soon offers to take her out to see more of the world, particularly with his two friends Danny and Helen (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike), giving Jenny a look at a more sophisticated life filled with booze, cigarettes, fine dining, trips to Paris, and art. David even manages to charm Jenny’s parents. Perhaps he’s a way out for Jenny and Oxford isn’t really a necessity anymore?
However, Jenny’s teachers and school administrators are a little bit more wary of David, though in the case of the headmistress (Emma Thompson), that may be due more to David’s Jewishness than anything else.
This was an interesting experience for me. The film, based on the memoir of British journalist Lynn Barber, does show David as a charming fellow and it’s easy to see why Jenny is so taken with him, and even to a certain extent her parents. However, he struck my as charming but immature, more dazzling than anything else. His friends are often not much better, but they occasionally flash a look that says Jenny doesn’t really belong with them, something she often overlooks. As such, when the other shoe does eventually drop, it’s not overly surprising. Why a man like David would be that enamored with an underage girl makes a lot more sense when that shoe does finally come down.
As such, the real title of the film is a bit obvious: Jenny learns not so much how to be sophisticated but to be wary of some men. David’s only real competition for Jenny’s affections is a clumsy boy her own age who riles her father up. But such is life: just because something is blindingly obvious to someone like me doesn’t mean it is to a young person with no experience with such matters. As such, this movie is very true to life, with all the pain and awkwardness that the dawn of adulthood brings to all of us sooner or later.
Grade: B+
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