Title: An Education
Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Emma Thompson, Alfred Molina, Peter Saarsgard and Carey Mulligan
Nick Hornby must be a paedophile; only a paedophile can understand and construct children as well as Hornby, as all they do is think about buggering children all day. Damn it Hornby creates amazing child characters! He’s good and not macaroni and cheese good, I’m talking Four seasons straight out of the oven with a side of green chilli garlic and Tabasco good. Alleluia!
An Education, ja this film gave me an education: adolescence is horrible, in fact its shit. Especially when you’re a a British female adolescent stuck in the midst an existential post-war crisis which sends you in only one direction, and you have no clue why.
Meet Jenny, the precocious academically ravenous Francophile, star of this tale whose entire world is as interesting as the overcast British suburb she lives in. then Bam! The charming yet oh so suspect David arrives in his magnificent sportcar and penchant for telling a fib or two. He is sly, she’s jailbait, together hand in hand they watch as Love rides into the room elegantly dressed in this academy award nominated period piece which allows us all to worship Shane Meadows for his unquestionable talent and the amazing “This is England”. David shows Jenny the world she’s always dreamed of the world, even if it is maybe from the confines of his best mates ultra-Travolta shag pad. Its magical, fabulous sprinkled with cigarettes, fancy cars and suspicious yet so intriguing naughty behaviour. Everything that a 17 year old girl would ever dream of. But then Lone Scherfig and Hornby pull out the trump of all “aha!” cards and everything starts to go to the dogs, racing dogs that is. Magic appears Boom! Mulligan (Jenny) plays out of her boots and goes to town and brings out the depth in her performance and illuminates the type of interiority rarely given to child-characters especially with as much as fidelity to the reality. It’s tragic but like Jenny on her penultimate Parisian virginal evening it is really pretty.
Borman and Scherfig do a stellar job in framing this touching yet incredibly coming of age unbearable piece. They exhaust the beauty yet monotony of the British countryside, and the entire film visually and unfortunately narratively is postcard ready. But it does have those dark and frighteningly familiar dark moments when you’re sure everything’s going to fall apart only for the prodigal Jenny coupled by the hilarious Doc Ok (Alfred Molina) to steal it back again.
To summate it’s a big green excellently conjugated, grainy, skinny, anti-Semitic British flick, that a yank or in this case a Dane had to have had a hand in it, there’s not a fuck or “jog on” in sight which makes it less entertaining but a lot more endearing. Take nothing away from profanity, but like Tabasco sauce it does tend to make things better.
It’s not great, in fact it just makes good, but if you’re feeling sentimental about the old country and about how things should’ve been. Watch it and you’ll thank L.Ron Hubbard every day for Russel Brand and his potty mouth and heroine addiction.
I give it 6 hoers
Borole out like a BEAN SPROUT!
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