Review of An Education (2009) by Natália Q — 26 Mar 2011

Good movie. But I'm not sure what it is, I just also found this movie to be incredibly boring at parts. It doesn't stop it from being a good movie. The issue is the scenes with Jenny, David, Helen and Danny.

They go out and eat in fancy restaurants and go to auctions and it just feels like pretentious bullshit. And it really bored the hell out of me. Carey Mulligan does a great job at reacting to all this new and exciting stuff she's doing with David, but it still felt incredibly boring.

Thankfully, the entire movie is not like that and it picks up. But the end also felt incredibly flat to me. It just ends, I suppose that's better than going on and on and on. But, at the same time, I felt that this movie kept going past its peak.

And I suppose it HAD to go past its peak to resolve all of the issues, but I don't know, something about the ending just felt very flat to me. So-so beginning and end hurt what, otherwise, is a really good coming-of-age story.

Carey Mulligan is pretty charming and great in her role. Definitely a star-making performance. The rest of the cast was good and the scripting was good as well, so I can't complain about that. What I liked most about the movie, other than Carey's performance, was just the costume design and the cinematography of the movie.

It does feel like a movie from a different era, from the way the characters dress to the way that they talk. It was really good stuff. And that's about it quite frankly, I don't know what else to say about this movie because not a whole lot happens that's interesting to write about.

It's free on Starz On Demand (until Thursday) so if you have it, then you might enjoy it. I can't wholeheartedly recommend it because not everyone is going to like it, but I thought the middle part of the movie was really good.