Review: An Education
Set in London in the 60s, Carey Mulligan plays a teenager whose father (Alfred Molina) is happy that she’s trying to get into Oxford…so she can meet important people. She meets an older man (Peter Sarsgaard) who seems very worldly and sophisticated to this girl on the verge of womanhood, and they begin a romantic relationship. Mulligan has always been a bit of a wannabe sophisticate and is far more intellectually-minded than most girls her age (she wants to live in Paris), so it’s no surprise that this older man would seem to suit her. Amazingly, Dad doesn’t frown too much on the relationship, especially when he hears that Sarsgaard knows author C.S. Lewis. Who needs college when your daughter can marry a well-connected man who can help her climb the social ladder? More concerned with all this is Mulligan’s teacher (Olivia Williams) who hears the gossip and whispers, but Mulligan is defiant in pursuing this relationship. Sarsgaard takes the girl to auctions and jazz clubs, and intr