11. An Education, directed by
Lone Scherfig

Life Lessons In An Education

 

This is, hands down, one of my favourite movies (meaning I’ve seen it more times than I can count). Set in London in 1961, schoolgirl Jenny is seduced by the perceived worldliness and glamour of an older man. Seeing him as an escape from her mundane existence, Jenny undergoes an education in life.

The cast is a stellar line up, carried by Carey Mulligan in her breakout (and Oscar nominated) performance as Jenny. I had first seen the brilliant Mulligan in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, but it was not until this film that I really pulled Carey Mulligan into my life and refused to ever let her go. Peter Sarsgaard is the dapper David, who manages to underscore his sophistication with a touch of slime. Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike and Emma Thompson also star, as does the relatively unknown but brilliantly comedic Matthew Beard, as Graham.

There is a real strength to the ensemble work – an invisible collaborative effort that gives buoyancy to the characters’ relationships. Scherfig helps set this up by often framing larger shot sizes with multiple characters, capturing simultaneous reactions and, through this, group dynamics.

Aside from the characters, the contextual backdrop is a critical presence. Like all aspects of the film it is understated, and yet it carries a weight to Jenny’s mindset and her every decision. Within a world that is engaged in political, cultural and military standoff, her choices go beyond the veneer of a schoolgirl on the brink of womanhood. It is not merely: should she leave school? Should she marry? Should she go to Paris? Rather, her decisions and her desire to break from convention are all informed by the Cold War and its persistent suggestion of imminent annihilation.

And yet, they go beyond even those confinements. Jenny is young and full of academic promise, physicalizing both inexperience and intelligence. She is drawn to a romanticised vision of the world, filtered through the chic smoke of cigarettes and the wafting of French music. Her voice exudes a passion to live in the moment, and a desire to abandon her former ambitions in the pursuit of vitality. But is that what she really wants? Nothing is easy, and her life pulls her in two directions.

More than on the cusp of womanhood, she wavers on the margins of the wider, collective liberation that would sweep the world. Jenny acts as the voice for all the confused and disillusioned young women of the time. This character personifies the contradictory female dispositions propagated during the Cold War era: the escapist and sexually emancipated vs. the housewife. The movie is like a stepping stone between the ’50s and ’60s, when women began questioning what was expected of them, and what they themselves wanted. Here, Jenny is keenly aware of life’s impermanence and the restrictions of gender inequality. This awareness only gives credence to impulses of rebellion – rebelling against school and decorum – but then also ironically places her in the position of becoming the very thing that she is rebelling against: a housewife.