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Education, An
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Universal acclaim
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 17 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Nick Hornby
Directed by: Lone Scherfig
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 9, 2009
Running Time: 95 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexual content, and for smoking
Starring Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Olivia Williams, Emma Thompson, Cara Seymour, Matthew Beard, and Sally Hawkins
In the post-war, pre-Beatles London suburbs, a bright schoolgirl is torn between studying for a place at Oxford and the more exciting alternative offered to her by a charismatic older man. (Sony Pictures Classics)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
An Education captures the very limited possibilities for female liberation in early-'60s London -- with massive social change on the distant horizon, but not here yet -- in exquisite detail.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
This tale of an English schoolgirl's hard-won wisdom is thrilling --for the radiance of Carey Mulligan's Jenny, who's wonderfully smart and perilously tender; for the grace of Lone Scherfig's direction, and the brilliance of Nick Hornby's screenplay.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
This is a performance, and a film, to cherish for this year and always.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This happens in 1961, when 16-year-old girls were a great deal less knowing than they are now. Yet the movie isn't shabby or painful, but romantic and wonderfully entertaining.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Hornby is a fine craftsman and his dialogue sparkles, though occasionally the scenes are too calculated.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It is, in its quiet, precise, classical way, nearly perfect.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
The combination of a literate script, an adroit cast and an economical style is simple addition that achieves an alchemical feat: the best film of the year.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Bracingly perceptive about the human comedy.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Afterward, you'll want to listen to the Beatles sing ''She's Leaving Home.'' It might be a girl like Jenny the lads had in mind.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
An Education shares with Hornby’s best work trenchant insight into the way smart, hyper-verbal young people let the music, films, books, and art they love define themselves as they figure out who they are and what they want to be.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg
Topped by a fine cast, a first-rate script by Nick Hornby and tight direction by Lone Scherfig, the film is a smart, moving but not inaccessible entry in the coming-of-age canon.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Elias Savada
Technical elements are among the best this year. Photography, editing, music, production design, and costumes all add seamless period flavor to the puritanical stew that was London almost a half-century ago.
Read Full Review >New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
It's a career-making performance that relies as much on charm as on acting ability -- and Mulligan has both.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
In the end, this is more a character study of Jenny than a tale of tortured love, and a reminder that any education worth having comes with its share of trauma.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Disarming and unexpectedly poignant, An Education contrasts the knowledge learned in school with that learned from life.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The film wouldn't work at all, though, if Sarsgaard didn't strike the perfect balance between snaky predator and love-struck fool.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The film version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” came out in the year in which An Education is set, and beyond the hairstyles, there’s something of the willful, gleeful Golightly reinvention expert about Jenny.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
An Education is remarkable for the traps it doesn't fall into. Jenny, for all her naive impulses, isn't a victim.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Through stellar performances, clever writing and exquisite cinematography, the story is fresh and thoroughly captivating.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Despite the lingering aroma of Victorian rot shrouding 1961, An Education is excitingly young.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Watch Mulligan's face as she goes from weary to awakened, and see it all come together.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
As she's being put through her Oxford-prep paces, Jenny complains about "ticking off boxes," and at times, this film seems to be doing just that: coming-of-age drama, check. Youthful illusions shattered, check. But as with first love, so with the movies: The right girl makes it all worthwhile.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
If in hindsight An Education might make you a little queasy, it is hard to resist, like David himself.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
Something of a deceptively packaged Oscar-season bonbon--a seemingly benign, classily directed year-I-became-a-woman nostalgia trip that conceals a surprisingly tart, morally ambiguous center.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Best of all, An Education isn’t alarmist. It knows other people can’t seduce us if we don’t seduce ourselves first and that Jenny is level-headed enough to handle it and learn.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Hornby's humane and humorous screenplay is true to the film's title: In short order, young Jenny finds out important truths about identity, glamour and how adults really think and live.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Staff (Not credited)
A beguiling little film that, with deceptive restraint and forthrightness, opens up worlds of roiling, contradictory emotions.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
For all its original touches, though, An Education follows a conventional trajectory.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen
This British drama is handsomely textured and beautifully acted, though the script often feels giddily out of touch with the essential creepiness of the scenario.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
An Education is perceptive and entertaining, but it doesn’t have the jolting vitality of, say, “Notes on a Scandal,” which dramatized an even more unconventional liaison--older woman, fifteen-year-old boy.
Read Full Review >Empire Dan Jolin
A decent but unremarkable film with a big, unforgettable central performance. Carey Mulligan passes with First-Class Honours.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York Keith Uhlich
Lone Scherfig directs it all as if it were a breezy lark, so a third-act tonal shift makes for an incongruous, excessively moralistic fit with everything that’s preceded. Most insulting, though, is the way in which the climactic passages miraculously tidy up every frayed edge of Jenny’s life.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Darleen O gave it a4:
This film raises and then skates breezily over some interesting feminist history. Ultimately, the motives of the main characters aren't believable. Carey Mulligan is wonderful, though.
Filipe M gave it a10:
The kind of movie with a script that will hardly take your eyes off the screen. A must see of 2009.
James L gave it a3:
Did I miss something or did I just see 2009's equivalent of "Happy Go Lucky"? There was nothing fresh, original, or interesting about this film. We have seen the plot before and the ending was a let down. The entire film was a big let down. An 85 review. I do not see how!
Norm G gave it an8:
Geez, is Carey Mulligan ever going to look old? She pretty much looks 14 as she did five years ago in Bleak House. Here she plays a saucy smart 16 year old on her way to Oxford. You have no problem guessing where the story ends, but along the way Jenny, and her family, get a little different education than you’d predict. So this takes An Education a rung or two higher than the typical older man/school girl romance. Most of the humor comes from Alfred Molina as Jenny’s dad. Oh, there are a few laughs when Emma Thompson makes her too few appearances. And the fabulous Peter Sarsgaard and Rosamund Pike are right on the money. My only problem with the plot was the big reveal . . . it stretched credibility.
Jeff S gave it a4:
I couldn't agree more with Time Out New York. I was onboard with the film until the abrupt and insulting ending which made everything that had preceded it much, much less interesting.
Andres U gave it an8:
Absolutely excellent film. One of the best films I've seen this year
Lewis gave it a3:
Slow and I'm sorry but not very interesting. The performances were all good, but I don't really understand all the Oscar buzz. Alfred Molina is pretty great in it, but the rest drags.
