An Education

An Education.

An Education is a Drama set in the 1960's which was directed by Lone Scherifig and released February 2010. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Rosamund Pike and Peter Sarsgaard. The film looks into the life of a teenaged girl trying to balance education between her older boyfriend. The film was nominated for three Oscars in 2010, including one for Best Actress in a leading role (Carey Mulligan). The film however did win a BAFTA for Best Leading Actress.

An important part of the film is when we realise that the innocent conversation to begin with wasn't so innocent as first intended. When David starts to treat Jenny more like a girl friend, the audience have a more awkward response as we already know that she is a school girl. Although she is 16, the relationship still comes off strange and that there is something weird going on. Because the audience is positioned to see the point of view of the protagonist, we should feel the same way about the relationship as Jenny does. However, in my opinion, due to the fact that David lies to Jenny's father about his intentions and plans highlights the fact that both Jenny and David know that the relationship is wrong or wouldn't be understood by other people. A significant scene in the film is when Jenny finds out what David does for a living. The importance of this is that Jenny is that when Jenny tries to walk away form David after finding out what he does, he manages to persuade her to stay with him. This portrays to the audience that he has a hold of Jenny and can almost control her. People have tried to warn her about being in a relationship with an older man but she has ignored the majority of concerns. This allows the audience to interpret what type of relationship Jenny and David have and how it has affected Jenny's character.

The performance from Carey Mulligan is very important through out the films as the audience has to be able to see the development in her character and in her case how such a young person has a high maturity level in order to go out with an older man. Her performance allows the the audience to understand how an intelligent girl was dragged into a world she thought she wanted. Her performance shows a realistic interpretation in regard to issues around 'untraditional' relationships.