Carey Mulligan gives a breakthrough performance while her co-stars shine
Stifled by the tedium of adolescent routine, Jenny can't wait for adult life to begin.
Meanwhile, she's a diligent student, excelling in every subject except the Latin that her father is convinced will land her the place she dreams of at Oxford.
One rainy day, her suburban life is upended by the arrival of an unsuitable suitor, thirtysomething David (Peter Sarsgaard) who very quickly introduces Jenny to a glittering new world of classical concerts and late night suppers with his attractive friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny's girlfriend, the beautiful but vacuous Helen (Rosamund Pike).
David replaces Jenny's traditional education with his own version, picking her up from school in his Bristol car and whisking her off to art auctions and jazz clubs.
Just as the family's long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by another kind of life. Based on the memoirs of Fleet Street legend Lynn Barber and adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby, you may have read about Ms Mulligan's performance as Jenny – she is good but not that good.
She is outshone by her co-stars who are all uniformly excellent, particularly Peter Sarsgaard as David, Alfred Molina as Jenny's father, Emma Thompson as the school headmistress, Rosamund Pike as the dizzy blonde girlfriend and Dominic Cooper as the louche Danny.
But by far the best performance is actually that of Olivia Williams as Miss Stubbs, Jenny's English teacher – she is simply sublime in a very measured and understated way.
One American journalist at the press conference I attended at the London Film Festival told Ms Mulligan in a desperately-fawning fashion that she was a shoe-in to win an Oscar! This is certainly a breakthrough performance for her and having recently been befriended by Warren Beatty no less and soon to be seen in Oliver Stone's Wall Street sequel Money Never Sleeps , she is clearly on a fast track to stardom but I am not 100% convinced by her wildly feted acting ability.
It will be interesting to see whether she can hold her own alongside Helen Mirren, Sam Riley and Pete Postlethwaite in the forthcoming remake of Brighton Rock .
An Education is worth seeing for its absolutely sparkling dialogue and script, slavish attention to the period detail and assured direction by Danish director Lone Scherfig. A word of warning though – Hornby fails miserably with the final act as the ending is pure Hollywood as opposed to Barber's original book!
An Education is in cinemas from this Friday.
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