Lone Scherfig's "An Education" is an ugly movie that hides its misanthropy under the pretty face of its bright new star, Carey Mulligan. She very well could be the next Audrey Hepburn, but this is most certainly not her "Roman Holiday," no, not on storytelling or film-making levels. About a young girl who stumbles naively into a relationship with an older man (Peter Sarsgaard), it forgives her of everything while condemning the man, her parents and a handful of other characters. Like most big-screen products attached to Mr. Nick Hornby ("About a Boy," "High Fidelity"), it's almost proudly myopic.
So Mulligan is Jenny, a bright teenage girl in the 60's nearing the end of high school. Her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) are dead-set on her going to Oxford, and she plays along, not without her own private yearnings. There's an early dinner-table scene between the three of them that highlights, in perfect clarity, the film's pro's and con's. On the one hand, Molina is likable as always, the timing is right and the dialogue makes you laugh. On the other, you're already looking at these people through the incredibly narrow vision of Scherfig and Hornby. Molina is an unsentimental taskmaster and Seymour is the typically dutifully silent wife. Mulligan is Beautiful and Charming and Smart and deserving of much better circumstances – emotionally, intellectually and financially – than her parents have provided her. I know it's Mulligan's story, and that is how her character might feel, but the movie – in its condescending treatment of the Molina character – seems to be one hundred percent on her side.
We see Mulligan at school and with a shy boy her age, who the movie mocks, like the Molina character, only to idealize in the end. On her way home, walking in the rain, Mulligan is picked up by David (Sarsgaard), a well-to-do bachelor with a sports car and an apparent knowledge – which he makes immediately obvious – of the "finer things." Mulligan sees the opportunity to quench her thirst for sophistication and takes it. David's intentions are perfectly clear from the outset and, though it is the early 60s, I can't imagine a girl like Jenny is so naïve that she completely misses them. She knows what he wants – but she knows what she wants, too, and how she can get it.
What follows is not so much an "education" as it is a length of time we spend waiting for the Mulligan character to stop deceiving herself. This type of self-destructive behaviour is certainly not uncommon of teenage girls, and although the movie is moralizing by the end, I've still never seen it so romanticized as it is here. The music, the dresses, the cigarettes, the dancing, the alcohol, and, certainly, the sex (Mulligan sells her body for a trip to Paris) are definitely the point, despite all the reversals and lessons that come out in the last act.
And what lessons they are! Mulligan has a couple awkwardly-written scenes with Emma Thompson as a conservative schoolmaster who's views on female chastity are supposed to be seen as outdated as her (quite random) anti-semitism. Mulligan's mistakes are turned into some victory for progressive feminists. Hey, I'm all for making the best of your misdeeds, but, that usually includes actually learning from them. Instead, the movie blames Molina's character for not being onto Sarsgaard's operator from the start.
But since we didn't believe the scene where Molina allows Sarsgaard to "chaperone" Mulligan's trip to Paris – it's played way too casually – his apology comes off as nothing more than a shallow transitional scene in a badly-plotted film. Another strange thing: Sarsgaard's friends and partners in crime (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike) seem to dodge all the condemnation the film doles out at the end – why? Because they're a little more honest about themselves, I guess?
I think it's something else: they're Beautiful and Charming, like Mulligan – they belong to the same club. Sarsgaard is awkward and creepy looking – sorta like the boy Mulligan ditches in the first act. Molina is fat and ignorant, and Cara Seymour as his wife just comes off as cowardly and pathetic. Olivia Williams, as a frumpy schoolteacher, provides the moral centre of the film – but as a plot device, not a character.
I know these weren't Scherfig or Hornby's intentions. Judging from the movie itself, I don't think they know what their intentions are. It's their principles I question.
Let me turn your attention to a shot in the second half: Mulligan, returning from Paris, plops a box of Chanel down on Williams' desk, as a gift. The shot is from behind Mulligan, eye-level with Williams, who tears up because she can't accept it. Now, honestly, watching the film, who would you rather be: the person who can hand out boxes of Chanel like turkeys on thanksgiving to her ugly friends, or the ugly duckling teacher who has to stifle tears because she's just too Morally Right to accept such a beautiful present?
But never mind. Do whatever you want to get whatever you want, and if you screw up, the people who care about you will bite the bullet. And you'll probably still get into Oxford, anyway. This movie made me feel icky.
5/10
So Mulligan is Jenny, a bright teenage girl in the 60's nearing the end of high school. Her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) are dead-set on her going to Oxford, and she plays along, not without her own private yearnings. There's an early dinner-table scene between the three of them that highlights, in perfect clarity, the film's pro's and con's. On the one hand, Molina is likable as always, the timing is right and the dialogue makes you laugh. On the other, you're already looking at these people through the incredibly narrow vision of Scherfig and Hornby. Molina is an unsentimental taskmaster and Seymour is the typically dutifully silent wife. Mulligan is Beautiful and Charming and Smart and deserving of much better circumstances – emotionally, intellectually and financially – than her parents have provided her. I know it's Mulligan's story, and that is how her character might feel, but the movie – in its condescending treatment of the Molina character – seems to be one hundred percent on her side.
We see Mulligan at school and with a shy boy her age, who the movie mocks, like the Molina character, only to idealize in the end. On her way home, walking in the rain, Mulligan is picked up by David (Sarsgaard), a well-to-do bachelor with a sports car and an apparent knowledge – which he makes immediately obvious – of the "finer things." Mulligan sees the opportunity to quench her thirst for sophistication and takes it. David's intentions are perfectly clear from the outset and, though it is the early 60s, I can't imagine a girl like Jenny is so naïve that she completely misses them. She knows what he wants – but she knows what she wants, too, and how she can get it.
What follows is not so much an "education" as it is a length of time we spend waiting for the Mulligan character to stop deceiving herself. This type of self-destructive behaviour is certainly not uncommon of teenage girls, and although the movie is moralizing by the end, I've still never seen it so romanticized as it is here. The music, the dresses, the cigarettes, the dancing, the alcohol, and, certainly, the sex (Mulligan sells her body for a trip to Paris) are definitely the point, despite all the reversals and lessons that come out in the last act.
And what lessons they are! Mulligan has a couple awkwardly-written scenes with Emma Thompson as a conservative schoolmaster who's views on female chastity are supposed to be seen as outdated as her (quite random) anti-semitism. Mulligan's mistakes are turned into some victory for progressive feminists. Hey, I'm all for making the best of your misdeeds, but, that usually includes actually learning from them. Instead, the movie blames Molina's character for not being onto Sarsgaard's operator from the start.
But since we didn't believe the scene where Molina allows Sarsgaard to "chaperone" Mulligan's trip to Paris – it's played way too casually – his apology comes off as nothing more than a shallow transitional scene in a badly-plotted film. Another strange thing: Sarsgaard's friends and partners in crime (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike) seem to dodge all the condemnation the film doles out at the end – why? Because they're a little more honest about themselves, I guess?
I think it's something else: they're Beautiful and Charming, like Mulligan – they belong to the same club. Sarsgaard is awkward and creepy looking – sorta like the boy Mulligan ditches in the first act. Molina is fat and ignorant, and Cara Seymour as his wife just comes off as cowardly and pathetic. Olivia Williams, as a frumpy schoolteacher, provides the moral centre of the film – but as a plot device, not a character.
I know these weren't Scherfig or Hornby's intentions. Judging from the movie itself, I don't think they know what their intentions are. It's their principles I question.
Let me turn your attention to a shot in the second half: Mulligan, returning from Paris, plops a box of Chanel down on Williams' desk, as a gift. The shot is from behind Mulligan, eye-level with Williams, who tears up because she can't accept it. Now, honestly, watching the film, who would you rather be: the person who can hand out boxes of Chanel like turkeys on thanksgiving to her ugly friends, or the ugly duckling teacher who has to stifle tears because she's just too Morally Right to accept such a beautiful present?
But never mind. Do whatever you want to get whatever you want, and if you screw up, the people who care about you will bite the bullet. And you'll probably still get into Oxford, anyway. This movie made me feel icky.
5/10