AN EDUCATION: graduating with honours from the School of Hard Knocks

I'm not sure if it's just coincidence but it seems like anytime I see Peter Sarsgaard in a film he's playing a creepy guy - not out and out written all over his face creepy - but not-what-he-seems-to-be creepy. The kind of guy who's nice on the outside but inside he's rotten to the core.

His David Goldman in AN EDUCATION is just such a man. Charming, sophisticated, reasonably well-off, and just rough enough around the edges to make him exciting, he comes into the life of 16 year schoolgirl Jenny Mellor (Carey Mulligan) and turns her world upside down.
Jenny's a precocious teenager. Hardworking and naturally talented she's set her sights on winning a place at Oxford. She thinks of herself of sophisticated, listening to Juliette Greco records in the bedroom of her suburban London home, smoking cigarettes, and peppering her conversation with French words. But her book smarts are no match for David's street smarts as the older man whisks her off her feet, introducing her to a world of nightclubs, classical musical concerts and weekend trips to Paris.
It's all so entrancing that she's prepared to abandon her long-laid plans for her future, pouring scorn on warnings from her teachers, and turning a blind eye as the seamy underside of David's life is gradually revealed to her.
The corruption of innocence, and the intoxicating power of first love to warp and mangle common sense and good judgment are themes that have been explored many times before in coming of age dramas. What makes them feel so fresh and worthy of our attention here is the compelling way in which they are explored by Nick Hornsby's script and articulated by the cast.

Sarsgaard, with his flawless English accent and air of increasingly seedy sophistication, is superb, while young British actress Mulligan is completely convincing as the naive teenager willing to throw away everything she's worked for in pursuit of being cool. Despite her comparative inexperience Mulligan more than holds her own against Sarsgaard, and the magnificent Alfred Molina in a best supporting actor Oscar nomination-worthy performance as her self-centred, pennypinching and domineering father.
As Jenny's mother, Cara Seymour uses silence and a submissive posture more effectively than any words could to express the smothering effect of her husband's behaviour. He has almost literally sucked the life out of her, and Jenny recognises that she has to get away if she is to avoid a similar fate. 
This air of repression is a constant presence in the story. Jenny's overbearing father is her own personal incarnation of the repression she feels as a teenage girl in early 1960s Britain, pushing against the confines of her sex and the mores of middle-class life. A place at Oxford looks like her only chance for a shot at a fulfilling life until she meets David. He offers the prospect of an easy and comfortable escape while the alternative appears long and difficult with no guarantee of success. 
In a landscape of massive multiplexes and shrinking art house cinemas AN EDUCATION is a small film that's unlikely to attract much of an audience and that's a real shame because it has so much to offer.