David (Peter Sarsgaard) has some odd ideas about a romantic night with schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) in the coming-of-age film “An Education.”

An Education

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Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexual content, and for smoking

Length: 99 minutes

Released: October 9, 2009 NY/LA

Cast: Emma Thompson, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina

Director: Lone Scherfig
Producer: Finola Dwyer
Writer: Nick Hornby
Genre: Drama
Distributor: Sony Classics

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It’s always been a perilous world for teenage girls. In the excellent film “An Education” the perils are not the life-threatening kind, but knowing who to trust and what direction to take are still daunting decisions.

Set in early 1960s pre-swinging London, the film captures a moment when the world, and especially the world for women, was on the edge of new possibilities.

Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a bright 16-year-old schoolgirl hoping to attend Oxford. It’s also the hope held for her by her overbearing father (Alfred Molina) and her spinster Latin teacher Miss Stubbs. Yet, when a worldly older man named David (Peter Sarsgaard) gives Jenny a ride home (ostensibly to save her cello from the rain), a relationship begins that allows Jenny to discover a world beyond constant studying and a life that seems to hold no fun at all.

If her future is simply becoming like the under-achieving Miss Stubbs or her uptight school headmistress (Emma Thompson), it seems like no future at all.

David, who is possibly twice Jenny’s age, is charming, wealthy and a smooth character who charms Jenny’s parents with lies and flattery. And, in a short time, Jenny is telling a few lies herself. For Jenny, he’s not only welcome attention, but the key to experiencing nightlife, new friends, the classical concerts that her father sees as frivolous, and all sorts of adult adventure.

Mulligan does a wonderful job of portraying a girl trying to successfully cross the chasm between childhood and adulthood — trying to hold on to enthusiasm and joy, while learning the realities of the world.

Nick Hornby (author of “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy”), who adapted the story from a memoir by Lynn Barber, keeps the dialogue believable and bereft of too-cute catchphrases. And director Lone Scherfig presents 1960s London as not so much innocent as just naive.

“An Education” is one of those rare films that simply tells a story and lets you enjoy getting to know a character and watching her on her journey — and it’s a journey probably every teenage girl ought to see.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
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