An Education (2009)

This is the first of three movies Jack & I saw over Thanksgiving weekend. We chose it because it was only playing on one screen, and a good choice it was. Winner of two Sundance awards in January, and nominated for 6 British Independent Film Awards, this engaging tale of a school-smart 16 year old in 1961 who falls for a man in his 30's was entertaining from start to finish. It's a British film, adapted by British Nick Hornby (he adapted his book Fever Pitch into a British movie of the same name (1997) about soccer, which someone else adapted into an American movie (2005) about baseball, plus two more of his novels were also adapted into delightful movies, High Fidelity (2000) and About a Boy (2002)), from a Brit's memoir (Lynn Barber), with a mostly British cast (more on that later), and directed by a Dane (Lone Scherfig). I love researching these posts, because now I realize that I have seen and enjoyed two of Scherfig's previous movies, both of which she wrote as well as directed: Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002) and Italian for Beginners (Italiensk for begynderetalian - 2000), the latter of which was the highest grossing Danish film ever, according to imdb.

In this one, (then) 22 year old Carey Mulligan is endearing and totally believable as the teenage Jenny, and American actor Peter Sarsgaard (some faves: Shattered Glass (2003), Garden State (2004), Kinsey (2004), Jarhead (2005), and Elegy) supremely flirtatious as the the beguiling older man. Special mention must be made of Alfred Molina (notables: Enchanted April (1992), Magnolia (1999), Chocolat (2000), Frida (2002) as Diego Rivera, Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Spider-Man 2 (2004) as Doc Ock, The Da Vinci Code (2006), and Silk (2007)) as Jenny's father, as well as cameos by the wonderful Emma Thompson (Pirate Radio, Last Chance Harvey, more) and Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky).

Like Pirate Radio and A Serious Man, also set in the 60s, music does much to set the scene. Imdb lacks any soundtrack info, so I found a list for you. And like Pirate Radio, singer Duffy performs a song (I thought it was a cover but have been corrected by one of my readers). This is rated PG-13, so you adults can bring your teenage girls (I would suggest 15 as a starting point) and then allow some time to talk about it. But we have no reservations about recommending it to any adults who don't mind a movie that is violence-free.