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"An Education" (2009) overview [ "An Education" official poster ]
The film was directed by Lone Scherfig, with screenplay written by Nick Hornby, and features an ensemble cast including Academy Award winner Emma Thompson, Peter Sarsgaard, Dominic Cooper, headed by Carey Mulligan. It's 1961 and attractive, bright 16-year-old schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is poised on the brink of womanhood, dreaming of a rarefied, Gauloise-scented existence as she sings along to Juliette Greco in her Twickenham bedroom. Stifled by the tedium of adolescent routine, Jenny can't wait for adult life to begin. Meanwhile, she's a diligent student, excelling in every subject except the Latin that her father is convinced will land her the place she dreams of at Oxford University. One rainy day, her suburban life is upended by the arrival of an unsuitable suitor, 30-ish David (Peter Sarsgaard). Urbane and witty, David instantly unseats Jenny's stammering schoolboy admirer, Graham (Matthew Beard). To her frank amazement, he even manages to charm her conservative parents Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour), and effortlessly overcomes any instinctive objections to their daughter's older, Jewish suitor. Very quickly, David introduces Jenny to a glittering new world of classical concerts and late-night suppers with his attractive friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny's girlfriend, the beautiful but vacuous Helen (Rosamund Pike). David replaces Jenny's traditional education with his own version, picking her up from school in his Bristol roadster and whisking her off to art auctions and smoky clubs. Under the pretext of an introduction to C.S. Lewis, David arranges to take Jenny on a weekend jaunt to Oxford with Danny and Helen. Later, using an ingenious mixture of flattery and fibbery, he persuades her parents to allow him to take their only daughter to Paris for her 17th birthday. David suggests that his "Aunt Helen" will once again act as a chaperone. Jack and Marjorie do not know that Jenny has chosen the date and place to lose her virginity. Paris is all that Jenny imagined it would be, sex with David somewhat less so. On her return to Twickenham, Jenny's school friends are thrilled with her newfound sophistication but her headmistress (Emma Thompson) is scandalized and her English teacher Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) is deeply disappointed that her prize pupil seems determined to throw away her evident gifts and certain chance of higher education. Just as the family's long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by another kind of life. Will David be the making of Jenny or her undoing? "An Education" premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival gaining critical acclaim. The film was also featured at the Telluride By the Sea Film Festival in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (September 19, 2009) and Mill Valley Film Festival, California (October 9, 2009)... Genre: drama Director: Lone Scherfig. Writers: Lynn Barber (memoir), Nick Hornby (screenplay) Producers: Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey. Executive producers: Douglas Hansen, Nick Hornby, Jamie Laurenson, Wendy Japhet, James D. Stern, David M. Thompson. Line producer: Caroline Levy Original music: Paul Englishby. Cinematography: John DeBorman. Film editing: Barney Pilling. Casting: Lucy Bevan. Production design: Andrew McAlpine. Art direction: Ben Smith. Costume designer: Odile Dicks-Mireaux. Make-up and hair designer: Lizzie Yianni Georgiou Cast Carey Mulligan as Jenny Peter Sarsgaard as David Rosamund Pike as Helen Olivia Williams as Miss Stubbs Alfred Molina as Jack Emma Thompson as Headmistress Cara Seymour as Majorie Matthew Beard as Graham Amanda Fairbank-Hynes as Hattie Ellie Kendrick as Tina Dominic Cooper as Danny Kate Duchâne as Latin Teacher Nick Sampson as Auctioneer Luis Soto as Rachman Ashley Taylor-Rhys as Petrol Attendant Sally Hawkins as Sarah Mark Edwards as Nightclub Band Tom Rees-Roberts as Nightclub Band Arne Somogyi as Nightclub Band Paul Wilkinson as Nightclub Band Phil Wilkinson as Nightclub Band James Norton as Student Olenka Wrzesniewski as Shakespeare Girl #1 Bryony Wadsworth as Shakespeare Girl #2 Ben Castle as Nightclub Band Beth Rowley as Nightclub Singer William Melling as Small Boy #1 Connor Catchpole as Small Boy #2 Bel Parker as Small Girl Certifications MPAA rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexual content, and for smoking. Australia: M. Ireland: 15A Runtime: 95 min. Country: UK. Language: English. Color: Color. Sound mix: Dolby Digital Awards Sundance Film Festival year / result / award / category / recipient 2009 / Won / Audience Award / World Cinema - Dramatic / Lone Scherfig 2009 / Won / Cinematography Award / World Cinema - Dramatic / John de Borman 2009 / Nominated / Grand Jury Prize / World Cinema - Dramatic / Lone Scherfig Authors' notes "I'm still not entirely sure what it was about Lynn Barber's piece that had such a strong pull on me, but quite clearly there was one," says screenwriter Nick Hornby. "I read it and gave it to my wife, Amanda Posey who is one of the producers, saying, 'Look, there's a film in here.' She agreed and with Finola Dwyer, her fellow producer started thinking about writers. I was aware that I was becoming envious - 'what do you want that loser for!?' - that sort of thing. So I said I wanted to have a go at it." "I always thought I must remember at some point to write the whole story of my first boyfriend as I always thought it was extraordinary," says journalist Lynn Barber of her brief memoir. The only person I'd told was my husband because it was such a long and complicated story - you couldn't really just tell someone casually over dinner or something. It was almost like a secret I'd been carrying around with me." "Perhaps what drew me to the piece most of all was that Lynn Barber has a very strong, sometimes confrontational voice in her profiles so when I saw that she'd written about her early life, I thought, Ah, I'd like to know about that!" says Hornby. "People who read her have a lot of interest in her, but Lynn has always kept herself out of her journalism and I was fascinated to find out about this story." Hornby continues: "It was always going to be a long shot - adapting 10 or 12 pages in a literary magazine - but it really was a labor of love. I felt that I understood Jenny's life; I was a suburban boy and my parents didn't go to university. I liked the richness of the dilemma which is, in some ways, 'life vs. education.' I used to be a teacher and it was something I ended up thinking about quite a lot. I was convinced that I could write a screenplay that would amplify Lynn's piece and make it interesting cinematically." - Nick Hornby and Lynn Barber Reviews Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Invariably funny and inexpressibly moving in the way it looks at a young girl's journey from innocence to experience, "An Education" does so many things so well, it's difficult to know where to begin when cataloging its virtues. ...There is nothing Hollywood at all about this British independent film. ...Danish director Scherfig, best known in this country for "Italian for Beginners," proved to be just the person to bring the story to the screen. ...She's directed with a sure feeling for what makes individuals individual. ...Mulligan is exceptionally empathetic through all these changes, gifted with the ability to make us believe in Jenny as an innocent, Jenny as a person of experience. Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "A miracle of a movie!" Prepare to be wowed by Carey Mulligan who is sensational and incandescent. Peter Sarsgaard is shockingly good. Alfred Molina is a comic force of nature. High on the list of the year's best movies." Leah Rozen, People Magazine: "My favorite movie so far this year." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: "An Education" is the vivid story of how one girl became a woman – and how Olde England morphed into the youthquake center of '60s yeah yeah yeah. ...The movie, in a palette of cloudy blues, is adapted from a vivid memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber and directed by gifted Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay of economical empathy by "High Fidelity" novelist Nick Hornby. David Edelstein, New York Magazine: If there's one thing that can pack an art-house cinema, it's the prospect of watching a pretty English teenager deflowered by a predatory older man, the whole dramatic striptease framed as an "educational experience." ...When she smiles, her whole face smiles with her. Other times, she strikes believably grown-up poses – enough to convince you Jenny is not just a poseur, that she's ready to move on. Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal: Jenny's hunger for learning is genuine, even if she has a sweetly pretentious habit of tossing off French phrases at the drop of a chapeau, and her precocity stokes her curiosity when, on a rainy day, a smiling sophisticate twice her age offers her a lift in his elegant car. Rex Reed, The New York Observer: "One of the best films of the year." Todd Hill, Staten Island Live: While Mulligan and Molina could receive Oscar nominations for their work here, as well as the film itself, the real yeoman's work is performed by the novelist Nick Hornby, who expanded what was originally just an 10-page essay in a literary magazine into this screenplay. The writer has taken what looks and feels like nothing more than hamburger and makes you feel like you're at a banquet. A wholly predictable narrative arc has been transformed into a story that's utterly compelling. © Preems.com |
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Premieres United States - January 18, 2009 (Sundance Film Festival); October 9, 2009 (Mill Valley Film Festival); October 16, 2009 (limited) Germany - February 11, 2009 (Berlin International Film Festival) Australia - June 14, 2009 (Sydney Film Festival); July 30, 2009 (Brisbane Film Festival); October 22, 2009 Canada - September 10, 2009 (Toronto Film Festival); October 12, 2009 (Vancouver International Film Festival) Greece - September 16, 2009 (Athens Film Festival) Brazil - September 25, 2009 (Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival) Finland - September 26, 2009 (Helsinki International Film Festival) New Zealand - October 8, 2009 Israel - October 10, 2009 (Haifa Film Festival); October 22, 2009 UK - October 30, 2009 Netherlands - February 11, 2010 Germany - February 18, 2010 Norway - April 16, 2010 Finland - April 16, 2010 Filming locations Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK Ealing, London, England, UK London, England, UK Paris, France Companies Production Sony Pictures Classics (presents) BBC Films Endgame Entertainment Finola Dwyer Productions Wildgaze Films Distributions Sony Pictures Classics (2009) (USA) (theatrical) Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2010) (USA) (DVD) E1 Entertainment (2009) (Ireland, UK) (theatrical) Transmission (2009) (Australia) (theatrical) A-Film Distribution / (2010) (Netherlands) (theatrical) Special effects Baseblack Other Kodak - motion picture film supplied by Anvil Post Production - sound re-recording Decca Records - soundtrack Fatts - post-production script services Midnight Digital - dailies and di Momoco/Maguffin - main titles Movietech - camera equipment provided by Soundtrack - ADR Facility Trivia Lynn Barber's memoirs were not published until June, 2009 when filming had already been completed. Nick Hornby created the screenplay based on an essay that was published in Granta Magazine, UK. Hornby is a novelist and three novels that he wrote ("High Fidelity," "About a Boy," and "Fever Pitch") were turned into movies. According to Hornby, what appealed to him in the memoirs was that "She's a suburban girl who's frightened that she's going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It's the story of pretty much every rock 'n' roll band." Nevertheless Hornby needed to write a story about a young teenage girl. He didn't feel it was more challenging than writing another character: "I think the moment you're writing about somebody who's not exactly you, then the challenge is all equal," he says. "I was glad that everyone around me on this movie was a woman so that they could watch me carefully. But I don't remember anyone saying to me, 'That isn't how women think.'" Technical specifications Laboratory: DeLuxe Printed film format: 35 mm Aspect ratio: 2.35 : 1 |
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"An
Education" is a British coming-of-age drama film based on an
autobiographical memoir of the same title written by the British
journalist Lynn Barber. It is the story of a teenage girl's coming-of-age
set in 1961 London, a city caught between the drab, post-war 1950s
and the glamorous, more liberated decade to come.
