Review of An Education (2009) by Sabra E — 06 Jan 2011

It's amazing how this movie was packaged as some sort of romantic, coming-of-age story. It's definitely not that. Or is it?

A sixteen-year-old girl is picked up in suburban London by a guy twice her age, who charms her strict parents into letting him take her around to partake In some culture with his friends; he lets her smoke, drink, wear cute little dresses, takes her to the races, and so on, not much unlike Pygmalion, but add of course--an education, on her part, to his being a two-timing, no-good hustler.

I've always thought Peter Sarsgaard was on the creepy side of the character spectrum as an actor, so that didn't help me fall for any of the nonsense either. And now that I've seen Carey Mulligan in this and Wall Street 2, I'd like to see her expand her range to include anything but a cute love interest at the verge of tears regarding any emotional moment tip-toeing onto a scene.

I can't say the movie was bad though, even if I am creeped out by the story in more ways than one. It was about a sheltered straight-A student, trying to get into Oxford, for the prestige, for the career, she was studying hard for an investment in her own independence, with her sternly parents supporting her all the way.

Then along comes guy who's smitten, the love bug bit him; she gives him a green light, tempted by the exact opposite of the boredom she's surrounded by; he pursues, they a really good time together, doing extremely classy things: the opera, auctions, visiting Oxford, Paris for a weekend, champagne. She's having the time of her life, and then it gets serious.

As they say: it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, and this is no exception. The end result of all this hot-pursuit, whirlwind romance is a triple-dipped duped sundae sprawl. A perfect mascara face smashed by rain, everyone going ow, ow ow and reaching for thread to suture their wounds.