Stuck somewhere between adolescence and adulthood exist young people hoping to burst out and meet the world.  The scope of their desires live in places that they are certain will be found far beyond their backyards and bedrooms.  There are cities to be visited; friends to be met; love to be made.  Try to discourage a teenager with a dream that takes them beyond the confines of their current realities and prepare for a fight.

Carey Mulligan as Jenny

An Education takes the classic coming-of-age story and adds to it an intelligence and wit lost in the blind naïveté of the main characters of so many such stories.  Instead, the film gives the audience Jenny, an exceedingly smart sixteen-year old whose dreams and desires carry her beyond the drab existence of 1961 suburban London.  The size of those desires is complimented by the drive for a life that will allow her to attain those dreams, but getting there is the battle. The film is about that battle, approaching it with a cleverness well matched for the headstrong Jenny.

As Jenny, Carey Mulligan carries the film firmly on her shoulders with such believability and poise, that it quickly becomes clear that she will own the movie from start to finish.  Sharing the screen with actors like Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, and Emma Thompson would be a difficult task for any actor, and Mulligan does not just hold her own against them, she shines.  Her performance is an absolute pleasure, and she makes Jenny one of the most likeable film characters of the year.  Prepare to hear Mulligan’s name both throughout the upcoming awards season and for years to come.

As Jenny prepares for her final year of schooling before college, she begins to see that her plan of attending Oxford has roadblocks to her dreams.  Why would she want to trade one boring existence for another?  Breaking away from one cage places her another one.  She sees herself as much more of a Parisian than a Londoner and believes that only in the City of Lights and Love will she be able to live freely. Even though Jenny’s intelligence may be beyond her years, the totality of her life’s experiences nonetheless creates in her an innocence that is never played as ignorance.  She is not ignorant to the world, only untested by it.

Living freely will never work for Jenny’s conservative father Jack (Molina).  Under his rules, she will attend Oxford, fit in, find a husband, and make a decent living leading a respectable life.  There will be no boat-rocking on Jack’s watch.  To Jenny this sounds like the death of her spirit, but to Jack this will be the way that he will be able to protect her for the rest of her life.  While being rigid in his beliefs and plans, Jack is never tyrannical and his love for his daughter and family is evident in his protective ways.

Everything seems to be going as planned in Jenny’s life, until one day she finds herself stuck in a rainstorm with her cello, post-practice.  A car approaches and inside is a handsome self-proclaimed cello enthusiast by the name of David (Sarsgaard) who hates the idea of seeing the instrument ruined.  He offers her a ride home, she accepts, and her education begins.

Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard as Jenny and David

In David, Jenny sees the doors to the future she wants opening. As he promises to make her dreams of an adventurous life possible, she sees an unforeseen path in front of her eyes.  He takes her out on the town and on weekend trips with his glamorous friends Danny and Helen (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike).  While shallow, Danny and Helen welcome Jenny’s entrance into their fast-paced lifestyle.  Helen is convinced that Jenny would wither into a fat, ugly, boring girl if she entered Oxford.  In her eyes, the only way to thrive in this life is to live it the way that she, Danny, and David live.  Jenny is more than happy to take part.

Even though more than twice her age, David is nonetheless able to charm Jenny’s parents into allowing her to go out on dates with him that extend from long evenings to entire weekends.  Just as Jenny has pinned her dreams on David, so has Jack.  He sees David not as a predator, but as the man who will provide her with the protective existence in which he seeks to place his daughter.

Soon Jenny the stellar student begins to fade into Jenny the failing student much to the disconcertion of her mentor and teacher Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) and strict Headmistress (Thompson).  They’ll have none of it, and are the only ones in the film who think Jenny is heading down a path of ruin.  Their hopes for Jenny are attached directly onto her, having no use for a man to fulfill her future.

The romance never seems creepy because the question remains throughout the film whether Jenny’s attraction to David has to do with the person that he is or that which he has to offer her.  He is no more than a vehicle for her dreams, albeit a charming handsome vehicle.  But as David’s truth slowly unfolds for Jenny, her dreams become grounded in a reality that she is unsure of how to navigate.

Adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby (who wrote the novels High Fidelity and About a Boy) from the memoirs of British journalist Lynn Barber, the film is expertly constructed to carefully unfold to the audience in concert with Jenny.  Nothing is known before Jenny, and the same questions and challenges that are presented to her are presented to the viewer.  Mulligan, Hornby, and director Lone Scherfig succeed at placing us firmly in Jenny’s shoes.

An Education is a refreshing take on the coming-of-age story.  It is not often that a careful portrait is given of a teenage character of such depth and understanding.  The drab world that Jenny exists within is captured well by Scherfig’s camera, and allows for the characters to shine brightly.  Jenny’s love affair with life has only just begun, and by the end of the film, you will be happy to have been there with her at the beginning.

An Education is playing in limited release nationwide. Check www.sonyclassics.com/aneducation for further details.

For the DVD pick of the week I’m recommending my favorite coming-of-age film, The Graduate. Mike Nichols’ classic film starring Dustin Hoffman as a recent college graduate who has much more to learn about life contains the same idea of learning through a love affair with an older partner.  Anne Bancroft is simply fantastic as Mrs. Robinson.  I’m sure that most of you have already seen the film- revisit it.  For those of you who haven’t seen it, get to it already!