Carey Mulligan is indeed very good in An Education. And I like Olivia Williams and Alfred Molina in everything.
After I watched the film, I read online (I don't have the link--I don't remember where I found it, sorry) a write-up by the woman off whose memoirs the film was based. And it was actually very instructive, because the film didn't actually stay that close to her personal experience. Some elements were true--I think the "I'm not going to lose my virginity to a piece of fruit" incident really happened, and her parents really were enthusiastic and accepting of her strange new partner. But in fact the man that she went out with didn't look like Peter Sarsgaard--he was somewaht ugly, and she says in the write-up that she wasn't particularly interested in him. Essentially, that there was no love, and she went out with him because...well, because she did. I think in order to try to make the romance appealing conventionally, and in order to make the audience understand the main character, the film (and Nick Hornby's screenplay) fall back on some cliches, like the sexy older guy, rather than portray the somewhat more complex truth that she wasn't under his spell, or in love. Carey Mulligan gets some of this across but I think the movie is a bit too cliched.
The ending, where she mentions having found a nice boy at college, and that she never mentioned her old boyfriend, was a bit of an odd moment--I'm all for good relationships, but there's something patronizing about the idea that she felt she had to (and should) pretend that she wasn't experienced, in order to be with a new guy.
(I also felt that the "academic training montage!" at the end of the movie was a little silly--framing the story as being about her fall from academic grace is an interesting one, but it becomes difficult then to show her redemption by studying really hard for about one minute of screen time.)
Anyway, I do think the film does do some things right--as you say, there are quite a few good lines, and the performances are good. But it's not really great.
And I agree that The Hurt Locker is a much better film.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 08:13 am (UTC)After I watched the film, I read online (I don't have the link--I don't remember where I found it, sorry) a write-up by the woman off whose memoirs the film was based. And it was actually very instructive, because the film didn't actually stay that close to her personal experience. Some elements were true--I think the "I'm not going to lose my virginity to a piece of fruit" incident really happened, and her parents really were enthusiastic and accepting of her strange new partner. But in fact the man that she went out with didn't look like Peter Sarsgaard--he was somewaht ugly, and she says in the write-up that she wasn't particularly interested in him. Essentially, that there was no love, and she went out with him because...well, because she did. I think in order to try to make the romance appealing conventionally, and in order to make the audience understand the main character, the film (and Nick Hornby's screenplay) fall back on some cliches, like the sexy older guy, rather than portray the somewhat more complex truth that she wasn't under his spell, or in love. Carey Mulligan gets some of this across but I think the movie is a bit too cliched.
The ending, where she mentions having found a nice boy at college, and that she never mentioned her old boyfriend, was a bit of an odd moment--I'm all for good relationships, but there's something patronizing about the idea that she felt she had to (and should) pretend that she wasn't experienced, in order to be with a new guy.
(I also felt that the "academic training montage!" at the end of the movie was a little silly--framing the story as being about her fall from academic grace is an interesting one, but it becomes difficult then to show her redemption by studying really hard for about one minute of screen time.)
Anyway, I do think the film does do some things right--as you say, there are quite a few good lines, and the performances are good. But it's not really great.
And I agree that The Hurt Locker is a much better film.