An Education

Sunday 4th April at 4.25pm | book tickets

1hr 40. UK 2009. Directed by Lone Scherfig. With Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina.

When this coming of age tale debuted at the Sundance Film Festival the previously-unknown lead Carey Mulligan was heralded as a major new talent. The film is set in post-war pre-liberation 1960s London and based on the memoir of Observer journalist Lynn Barber. Danish director Sherfig creates an atmosphere of entrapment where things are stuck between old and new and the decade that has come to signify change is stripped of its righteousness. Change is tough and the film focuses on the coming of age not only of a teenage girl but of an entire nation. Jenny (Mulligan) is a bright and confident girl full of the arrogance of youth who is seduced by an older man and his glamorous friends and lifestyle. David (Sarsgaard) charms his way not only into Jenny’s life but into her family as well and their failure to see through him and protect their daughter is a painful lesson in the fallibility of one’s elders.