Review of An Education (2009) by Patti M — 28 Oct 2013

An enjoyable film with a frustratingly cliche and tidy ending. Just when I was enjoying the performances and curious to know where it was all going, the whole thing goes to hell in two scenes and then has a ribbon slapped on it to tie it all together neatly.

It might have been better had it been longer but that would have also required that the characters be fleshed out better. Carey Mulligan's Jenny is delightful, perhaps because she is a 3D character in a 2D world.

I will give the director the benefit of the doubt and assume the Emma Thompson and Alfred Molina caricatures were deliberate. There's a lot of potential in this film and I'm sure many will eat it up, but that last act was just weak sauce for me, undermining much of what preceded it.

I'd recommend it for Mulligan's performance but not the story which, in the end, covers much of the same ground as earlier, more worthwhile films.