An Education (2008)

This film was actually released at Sundance in 2008 but was not released into theaters until 2009. It was nominated for best picture in 2010.

This film is based in 1961 London and stars newcomer Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a girl with aspirations of attending Oxford.

Jenny meets David (Peter Sarsgaard) after concert practice (she plays the cello) and he offers her a ride home as it is raining. He runs into her in town and asks her to a concert that her strict father (Alfred Molina) somehow allows her to attend. Here Jenny meets David's business partner Danny (Dominic Cooper) and his girlfriend Helen (Rosamund Pike) at the classical music concert. They have a late supper at a jazz club and Jenny is mesmerized by the life they lead. Before you know it, Jenny's parents allow her to take an overnight trip with David under the guise of meeting the author C.S. Lewis.

It is here that Jenny learns that David makes his money by stealing and cons. He and Danny go into homes for sale and steal art. David also moves a black family into neighborhoods to scare old ladies into selling their homes to him cheaply then re-selling them. At first Jenny is angry, but has become so used to their life of nice restaurants and jazz clubs that she chooses to overlook the bad stuff, she even goes to Paris with him. David soon proposes, Jenny accepts then drops out of school figuring that she would not need school anymore. One of her teachers, Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) as well as the headmistress of the school (Emma Thompson) try to speak to her about her choices, but to no avail.

On the way to dinner with her parents and David, Jenny comes across some mail in the car that shows that David is actually married. She demands that he take her home and tell her parents that he is married. He drives away like the coward he is.

It is now too late to take the exams necessary to get in to Oxford and the headmistress of her old school will not allow her to take the year over. she turns to her old teacher Miss Stubbs who helps her study for her exams and she is accepted.

Carey Mulligan is currently filming the new "Wall Street" movie with Shia LeBeouf who is also rumored to be her boyfriend. You can see Rosamund Pike in "Pride and Prejudice" with Keira Knightley, one of my favorite romantical type movies.

I thought this movie was good, not boring like I though it would be, although I think that it is more of a girl movie. Oscar worthy? Maybe.

Rated PG-13. 95 Minutes. I give this movie FOUR STARS.