An education

Last Friday was a good day for me; I found three films on my list with one of them being An Education, starring the stunning Carey Mulligan. Once I put it on the DVD player, it was like a beam of civilisation was shining on me; it is an instant hit and I was mesmerised by both the storytelling and the performance.

Although I had read the rave reviews on Carey Mulligan, her immaculate performance is still beyond my expectation, and like the Danish director Lone Scherfig remarked: she is a natural. There are many a great moment; one of which being the scene in which she dances with Danny: her intense look is both innocent as appropriate of a just-turned-seventeen year old schoolgirl and seductive as an intelligent lady 'with good taste', making it extremely convincing indeed for the conman to snatch her away from his friends and propose to her straight afterwards. Her quality of a child-woman and probably her hair style as well, draws comparison to a young Audrey Hepburn in The Roman Holiday. Although it is an all star cast, Carey, then still a budding actress, has made the film her own. What surprises me most perhaps is when I checked on the web, I found for the first time she was Kitty in Pride and Prejudice (2005); and Ada the orphan in BBC adaptation Bleak House, which I had watched but failed to identify in this film.

Another surprise 'find' is perhaps Peter Sarsgaard, in the role of the charming Jewish conman. And what a brilliant yet understated intrusion to the scene when he he winds down the window to make a perfect appropriate offer for Jenny to put her wet cello in his car (in the name of his love for music) and for her to walk alongside the car!

For the chemistry between the lead couple, and the dazzling life Peter seems to be offering to a bright sixteen year old living in a suffocating suburban London house, the film would still be one of the best films in 2009 if it finishes at Jenny accepting Peter's proposal and leaves her Oxford dream astray. The last quarter of the film is sombre in tone yet turns the film into another category; that of how to deal with the mess we find ourselves in.

I am intrigued by the fact some of the deleted scenes are offered as special feature. For me, that decision in itself is a tribute to the film's editor and is proving yet again that less is more.