An Education

I got to skip school yesterday on the pretense of complications after oral surgery, and instead of finishing a mock AP Calculus exam of 100+ problems (worth a trite 1/5 point value of that), I watched An Education. The premise itself seems ironic enough already.

I might have been too thick for the message to come across to me in the end, for during the entire viewing I was thinking, "Jenny is what I should have been." Which is an English francophile schoolgirl in love with Pre-Raphaelite paintings (yes, I believe I should have been born English). I personally identify with her on multiple points, but in the end she is different enough from me so that the film cannot truly impact me fundamentally. 

There was a lot of smoking in the movie. I worry that once I hit eighteen, I'll become one-pack-per-day.

I'll tell people that this is me in front of the Notre Dame.

Given the choice, I would have done exactly what Jenny did, which was to become engaged to this suave and infinitely glamorous older man and drop my previous plans for the future. It's just that at this malleable age, everything in the grown-ups' world is absolutely irresistible. I constantly cave into the darker, materialistic side of my personality and I can't even muster up the courage to banish it. Heck, perhaps the reason that I am so slow to absorb the lesson of the film is my obsession with the beautiful period details of the sets and wardrobe. I'm a helpless romantic when it comes to 60s fashion and an anglophile at the same time.

Jenny: I want to read English.

Helen: Books?

Jenny: Sorry?

Helen: You want to read English books?

Jenny: Oh yes, reading English is just another way of saying...

Danny: I wouldn't worry, Jenny. You're wasting your breath.

Rosamund Pike (Helen), whom I've adored ever since Pride and Prejudice, provided priceless comic relief and foil. She's the typically gorgeous blonde with a vapid mind to match. Out of all the characters in the film Helen is perhaps the most likable, the kind of girl who has absolutely no idea what's right or wrong but who will provide you with a shoulder to cry on, no questions asked.

The suave motherfucker with his watch.

I suppose the film serves as a precaution of sorts. On the off-chance that a man looking like Peter Sarsgaard pulls up next to me in a gorgeous car, I'll be astute enough to say no to anything he might offer. I doubt it'll happen around my neighborhood, though. 

An Education is directed by Lone Scherfig. Screenplay by Nick Hornby based on Lynn Barber's autobiography. Starring Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Rosamund Pike, and Dominic Cooper. (The latter of the two I would totally know because I'm obsessed with BBC productions.) Screenshots from film_stills.