Education, An

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.

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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

This is a performance, and a film, to cherish for this year and always.

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.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Hornby is a fine craftsman and his dialogue sparkles, though occasionally the scenes are too calculated.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It is, in its quiet, precise, classical way, nearly perfect.

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.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Bracingly perceptive about the human comedy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A distinctive story with universal appeal.

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.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Disarming and unexpectedly poignant, An Education contrasts the knowledge learned in school with that learned from life.

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.

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.

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.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Through stellar performances, clever writing and exquisite cinematography, the story is fresh and thoroughly captivating.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Despite the lingering aroma of Victorian rot shrouding 1961, An Education is excitingly young.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Watch Mulligan's face as she goes from weary to awakened, and see it all come together.

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.

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.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Carey Mulligan shines in a captivating performance.

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.

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.

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.

Washington Post Staff (Not credited)

A beguiling little film that, with deceptive restraint and forthrightness, opens up worlds of roiling, contradictory emotions.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

For all its original touches, though, An Education follows a conventional trajectory.

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.

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.

Empire Dan Jolin

A decent but unremarkable film with a big, unforgettable central performance. Carey Mulligan passes with First-Class Honours.

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.