Nick Hornby, whose novels (About a Boy, High Fidelity, Fever Pitch (actually a memoir of sorts)) deal with men struggling to reconcile their desire to remain living the life of a teenager with the realities of life as an adult, wrote the screenplay of An Education, about a teenage girl struggling to reconcile her vision of life as an adult with the painful realities. The movie is based on a memoir by Lynn Barber who is 16-year-old Jenny in the movie, played beautifully by Carey Mulligan. Jenny is the star student at her private school in a London suburb in 1960 with her sights set on going to Oxford. Or at least her parents have their sights set on her going to Oxford. When a dashing 30-something named David (Peter Sarsgaard) shows up in a sporty car to offer Jenny a ride home in the rain, her poor geeky teenage suitor stands no chance.
It is hard to decide what aspect of the movie is most creepy: the romantic relationship that develops between Jenny and a man twice her age or the tacit approval of this relationship by society as a whole and Jenny’s parents in particular. Her father, played by Alfred Molina, is so concerned about her future financial stability, that for him the prospect of her dropping out of school is more than compensated for by a connection to a wealthy sophisticate. For her part, Jenny is seduced not just by David’s charms, but by the alternative to grinding away at the books for no obvious reason. The movie fails to articulate a case for Jenny to go to school. Her teacher and the headmistress of her school can only point to their own careers, both portrayed as dismal, as the rewards for a woman going to Oxford University. Her English teacher, a young woman who recognizes Jenny’s potential, is worn down by the apathy of her other students. She is made to seem like a lonely bookworm with her hair tightly pulled back and a pale complexion. It is a bit too simplistic a way to make the glamorous life of jazz clubs and weekends in the countryside offered by David the obvious choice over the more responsible - and more rewarding - educational path. Of course, the education of the title refers not to her book learning, but to Jenny’s education on the ways of greedy and less-than-honest men.