Hot on the heels of his new novel Juliet, Naked is Nick Hornby’s screenplay for An Education. Though the writer’s name is a selling point for the film (a rare honor for a lowly scribe) don’t expect the pop- and sports-obsessed musings of the movies based on his books About a Boy, Fever Pitch, and High Fidelity. Based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, this one’s about a girl. And what interesting company 16-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) proves to be.

An Education takes place in 1961, just before London started to swing. From the start, the movie is excellent at signifiers: The period production design (Andrew McAlpine), art direction (Ben Smith), set decoration (Anna Lynch-Robinson), and costume design (Odile Dicks-Mireaux) all show a proper, if mildewed, English reserve, and the lighting, by John de Borman, has an uncanny restraint, as if it too is being rationed. Conservatively raised by parents Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour), Jenny would seem to be far from the epicenter of the cultural earthquake that would collapse the fifties into the sixties. But she’s a little braver, and more precocious, than her schoolmates, to the occasional dismay of her teacher, Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams), and the institution’s headmistress (Emma Thompson), who see her as Oxford material.

However, the enigmatic businessman who gives Jenny a ride home one day in his Bristol roadster, David (Peter Sarsgaard), sees her as something else. At least twice her age, and Jewish to boot, David is enchanted by his slightly thorny rose, who is in turn captivated by his stories of Paris and his familiarity with the worlds of art auctions, nightclubs, and racetracks. That David’s business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper, from Mamma Mia! and The History Boys) and Danny’s girlfriend, the sexy but scatter-brained Helen (Rosamund Pike), are a rougher sort, and that the nature of their business is on the shady side isn’t too worrying. Jenny’s hooked, and so, to her surprise, are her parents, who buy the couple’s white lies, figuring that her association with a worldly type who brags about his friendship with C.S. Lewis can only improve her chances of getting into Oxford. (more…)