An Education

There is a specific kind of 1960s London that only exists in the movies—all rain-slicked pavement, smoke-filled jazz clubs, and the sophisticated hum of a Bristol 405. When I first watched An Education, I was huddled on a sagging beanbag chair in a dorm room, eating a bowl of cereal that was 40% milk and 60% regret. Seeing Carey Mulligan step out of the rain and into a life of Chanel and champagne made my own "education" feel like a prison sentence.

Looking back now, fifteen years after its release, An Education feels like a beautifully preserved artifact from a very specific moment in cinema. It arrived in 2009, right at the tail end of the "indie prestige" boom, before the mid-budget drama was largely chased off the big screen by capes and multi-verse madness. It’s a film that’s recent enough to feel modern, but old enough that we can finally admit Peter Sarsgaard’s David Goldman is basically the patron saint of red flags wrapped in cashmere.

The Face That Launched a Career

The movie belongs entirely to Carey Mulligan in her breakout role as Jenny Mellor. It is genuinely startling to see her here—she was twenty-two playing sixteen, and she carries that "smart-girl-bored-to-tears" energy with a terrifyingly sharp precision. She’s not just a wide-eyed waif; she’s arrogant, witty, and desperately impatient for a life she hasn’t earned yet.

I’ve always found the chemistry between her and Peter Sarsgaard to be profoundly unsettling in the best way. Sarsgaard, an actor who has mastered the art of being "likable but oily," plays David with a charm that is clearly a mask. Rewatching it through a 2024 lens, the "romance" is much harder to swallow, which is exactly the point. The film doesn't ask us to root for them; it asks us to understand why a girl who reads Camus in a drafty bedroom would find a man who offers her a trip to Paris irresistible.

The supporting cast is an absolute embarrassment of riches. Alfred Molina is devastating as Jenny’s father, Jack. He captures that post-war British anxiety—the kind of man who thinks Oxford is the only way to "safety" but is easily seduced by the same shiny things as his daughter. Then there’s Rosamund Pike (long before she went full sociopath in Gone Girl), playing the "dim" friend Helen with a comedic timing that I think went largely underappreciated at the time. She’s a delight.

The Script of Experience

Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay, adapting a short memoir by Lynn Barber, and his fingerprints are all over the dialogue. It’s snappy, rhythmic, and incredibly British. There’s a scene where Jenny confronts her headmistress, played by the formidable Emma Thompson, that I’ve revisited probably a dozen times. It’s a battle of ideologies: the "gray" life of hard work versus the "glittering" life of fun. Hornby doesn't make it easy; he lets Jenny make a valid point about the soul-crushing boredom of 1960s womanhood.

Directing with a light but firm hand, Lone Scherfig (who also gave us the lovely Italian for Beginners) avoids the "period piece" trap of making everything look like a museum. The cinematography by John de Borman feels lived-in. When Jenny finally gets to Paris, it’s not a postcard; it’s a hazy, dreamlike blur that mirrors her own intoxicated state of mind. It’s the visual equivalent of a first glass of wine—sparkling, then a bit dizzying, then eventually leading to a massive headache.

A Relic of the 2000s Indie Boom

In the grand scheme of the late 2000s, An Education was a "big" little movie. It was nominated for Best Picture, but in the year of Avatar and The Hurt Locker, it felt like the quiet kid in the back of the class. It’s a film that thrived on DVD culture; I remember the special features being a goldmine of Carey Mulligan screen tests, showing a young actor who quite literally walked into the room and changed her life.

Interestingly, this movie was one of the last gasps of the BBC Film/Wildgaze style of mid-budget storytelling before the financial crisis and the shift to streaming changed the landscape. It’s a movie that trusts its audience to sit with discomfort. There are no CGI de-aging tricks or explosive set pieces—just a girl, a car, and the realization that the "shortcut" to adulthood is usually a dead end. It’s a movie that treats a teenager’s intellectual vanity as a life-or-death stakes drama, and honestly, that’s exactly how being sixteen feels.

If you missed this one or haven't revisited it since the Obama administration, it’s time to go back. An Education remains a masterclass in tone, anchored by a performance that still feels like a lightning strike. It’s a cautionary tale that manages to be lush, funny, and deeply cynical all at once. Just don't blame me if you find yourself looking for a vintage Bristol 405 on eBay afterward.

***

Trivia Note: To get the part, Carey Mulligan reportedly beat out over a hundred other actresses. She was so convinced she wouldn't get it that she almost skipped the final callback. It’s hard to imagine the last fifteen years of British drama without her, which makes this "obscure" gem the ultimate origin story.