An Education

A wonderful movie done with subtley and a light touch dealing with difficult issues like love/lust between an older man and a very young girl, the limits of education and the importance of it at the same time. The father Albert Molina acts very well on the one hand wanting his daughter to go to Oxford and on the other totally swept away by David the smooth talker/crook.

Schoolgirl Jenny is 16 and a virgin. Sophisticated David is twice her age and ready to pounce. The time is 1961. The place is England just before it learned to swing. So begins An Education; a quiet miracle of a movie that quickly disabuses you of the idea that you've seen it all before.

Prepare to be wowed by Carey Mulligan, whose sensational, starmaking performance as Jenny ignited film festivals from Sundance to Toronto. The incandescent Mulligan, 24, is a major find who makes Jenny's journey from gawky duckling to sad, graceful swan an unmissable event. As David, Peter Sarsgaard is shockingly good at walking the line between charming opportunist and sexual predator. What's the truth? Pay attention as Danish director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) works wonders with the coming-of-age memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber. This story about a girl is brilliantly adapted by About a Boy author Nick Hornby, who finds a timeless resonance in the battle between rigid, formal education and messy, carnal life.Rollingstone review