So as per my way in catching movies WELL after they have been released, I finally got around to seeing An Education this weekend; not exactly Halloween viewing!
Overall I thought it was a good movie – and not quite the movie I was expected in a good way. I was anticipating a dominant theme of high drama. Instead what I experienced was a perfectly balanced film that reflects what many of us go through in our own lives much like life itself – a mixture of light and dark, joy and sorrow, heartbreak and triumph. Add to this the fact that it is a mid-20th century period piece which is also a coming-of-age story means that it could have easily fallen into the trap of melodramatic sentimentality. It does not largely due to the great screenplay by Nick Hornby and performances, lead of course by a wonderful Carey Mulligan.
Another fantastic artifact of this film going experience is that the director is Lone Scherfig, whose CV is while a bit brief, quite impressive. Her films include Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (a film recommended to me by a blog reader) and Italian for Beginners a film that constantly appears in my Netflix queue of which I have a fleeting interest to check out. So An Education has been an education for me in many respects.
I thought it was a pretty good coming-of-age movie, nothing more. In my opinion, not deserving of a Best Picture nomination. Carey Mulligan certainly is wonderful and so is Peter Sarsgaard. The ending felt a bit empty and backtracking to me. Here she is making this case for a worldly life and education and all she does at the end is return to school and everything is fixed?
Castor – I see your point about the ending. Correct me if I am mistaken but from your vantage there seems to be a resignation or yielding to the one thing she was trying to flee.
One thing I thought about after my post was how naive the parents were. That was quite comical in of itself.
Since I saw this so removed from all the Oscar buzz, I totally forgot that it was a nominee for Best Picture. Is that a bad thing?
Yes, the parents were really naive but Sarsgaard character was a smooth-talker so I didn’t mind that.
Ahah no it’s not a problem. At the end of the day, we only remember the winners 😉