Over Thanksgiving weekend I saw the film An Education (screenwriter is Nick Hornby). I am a Hornby fan (High Fidelity (see memorable quotes below) and A Long Way Down are two books high on my favorites list), so I was excited to see what I believe is his first foray into film.Here is a brief overview as well as my thoughts:
A cautionary tale of an innocent young women seduced by a smooth-talker, the main character Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a dutiful student and a passionate consumer of modern novels and French pop records. At 16 she is in a terrible hurry to grow up (who isn't at that age?)
One rainy afternoon, David (Peter Sarsgaard) shows up. A seemingly harmless 30-something fluent in a language of style and culture, David strikes up a conversation with Jenny. Before she can fully inhale her first ciggy, Jenny is swapping out her high school uniform for designer dresses, black mascara and expensive champagne....and you, the viewer, know something is abound to go wrong and are sitting waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But, as The New York Times' A.O. Scott writes, "director, Lone Scherfig, and the screenwriter, Nick Hornby, let it (the shoe) float gradually and gently to the ground. It is vital to the movie’s delicate, comic tone that intimations of the predatory, duplicitous aspects of David’s character do not emerge too suddenly. Jenny is smitten, and so, rather astonishingly, are her parents, in particular her conservative and unworldly father, who all but delivers his daughter to her seducer tied up in a bow, believing that this is an opportunity for her social advancement."
An Education is one of those films where you can see that the train wreck coming, but you can't turn away...you are both entranced and disgusted by the characters. Able to agree and disagree with the decisions Jenny is making in life, wanting to smack her parents upside the head and trying to really understand why a 30-something man would have interest in a 16 year-old-girl.
This film has received criticism for its portrayal of Jewish people (David is Jewish in the movie).
I did some digging around and found that the film is based on a true story, a memoir by the writer Lynn Barber: http://www.guardian.co.uk...In her youth, she had an affair with an older man who was Jewish. So that's "why the character had to be Jewish." Just an FYI.
High Fidelity Quotes:
Barry: [performing at the record release party] Rob, thank you for that kind introduction. We're no longer called Sonic Death Monkey. We're on the verge of becoming Kathleen Turner Overdrive, but just for tonight, we are Barry Jive and his Uptown Five.
Rob: How does he do it, you ask. How does
[stops, whispers]
Rob: how does an average guy like me become the number one lover-man in his particular postal district? He's grumpy, he's broke, he hangs out with the musical moron twins...
[shrugs]
Rob: Liking both Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel is like supporting both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Laura: No, it's really not, Rob. You know why? Because Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel make pop records.
Rob: Made. Made. Marvin Gaye is dead. His father shot him.
Rob: Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.
Laura: I'm too tired not to be with you.
Rob: What, so if you had a bit more energy we'd stay split up, but things being as they are, with you being wiped out and all, you want to get back together? Is that it?
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Listen, Rob, would you have sex with me? Because I want to feel something else than this. It either that, or I go home and put my hand in the fire. Unless you want to stub cigarettes out on my arm.
Rob: No. I only have a few left, I've been saving them for later.
Laura: Right. It'll have to be sex, then.
Rob: Right. Right.
Rob: I can't fire them. I hired these guys for three days a week and they just started showing up every day. That was four years ago.
[first lines]
Rob: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
Rob: Sometimes I got so bored of trying to touch her breast that I would try to touch her between her legs. It was like trying to borrow a dollar, getting turned down, and asking for 50 grand instead.
Barry: Holy shite. What the fuck is that?
Dick: It's the new Belle and Sebastian...
Rob: It's a record we've been listening to and enjoying, Barry.
Barry: Well, that's unfortunate, because it sucks ass.
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