Simply put, she’s sensational. In a lot of reviews for the film, critics have been comparing Carey Mulligan to Audrey Hepburn. After seeing the movie I can see why. Like Audrey Hepburn, Mulligan has an uncanny ability to seemingly represent every aspect of femininity in her performance as Jenny. Mulligan’s Jenny is intelligent, naive, perceptive, sexy, innocent, young, and wise beyond her years all at once. Mulligan’s work in “An Education” suggests that she has the soulfullness and amazing range of emotion that made Hepburn a star.
While Carey Mulligan will most likely get most of the award’s attention, Peter Sarsgaard is superb as David, the older man who seduces Jenny. Scenes of a man in his mid-30′s courting a 16 year old could easily have been skincrawingly inappropriate but Sarsgaard manages to balance the audience’s moral objections to the relationship with the direct and seemingly open way in which David pursues Jenny. We cannot help but be impressed with David’s nimble handling of Jenny’s parents despite the fact that he seems to have had a lot of practice charming suspicious parents. For Sarsgaard, “An Education” continues a uniquely diverse and interesting career trajectory. Sarsgaard has deftly moved between lead and supporting parts in movies both small and large, doing work that consistently makes the film’s he chooses better for his presence in the cast.
One of the film’s strengths is how perfectly encapsulates a time and place: post-WWII England. Hornby’s screenplay (adapted from Lynn Barber’s memior) gets every detail right. Jenny’s world is one which holds very little adventure for a woman, no matter how smart she is or how well she does in school. David’s life offers the excitement and adventure that an Oxford education might promise, but rarely delivers. Jenny need only look at her teacher’s (wonderfully played by Olivia Williams) seemingly frustrating and boring life to see how little life seemingly holds for her. The clubs, art auctions and race tracks that David whisks Jenny away to feel absolutely spot on and the couple’s trip to Paris is stylishly and romantically shot by director Lone Scherfig. More than anything “An Education” is a confidently produced film, made by people who completely understood the story that they wanted to tell.
