The True Blue "An Education" Movie Review

Welcome to London in the 1960s where we are introduced to Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a school girl with a knack for art but repressed by strict parents who won't let her travel and instead only allow her to embrace cheap contemporaries while attending an uptight school where she pulls good grades. From the opening credits decorated with Floyd Cramer's giddy "On the Rebound", the audience is exposed to a bright and chipper world.


Things change shortly into the movie when Jenny meets David (Peter Saarsgard), who offers her a ride home during a rainy day on the concern that he doesn't want her cello to get weather damaged.
Things kick off from there. David is the opposite of what her family would desire. He is a wealthy Jewish man with from a family who travels and indulges in culture no matter how extravagant. After claiming to know a famous author, David convinces her parents (Alfred Molina, Cara Seymour) to let her travel abroad to Paris and other cities where Jenny and David embrace romance and arts in pure bliss.
Many twists appear as the story goes on, including David's reliability and what Jenny's future in school would look like if she married him.
What the movie ends with is not necessarily a morally ethical movie, but a semi-entertaining story with plenty of drama, art, romance... all on the grounds of blissful youth. The movie's notable savior is Carey Mulligan, who manages to capture these concepts and make them her own. From her early naive scenes to the ending realization, there is plenty of transformation seen that makes Mulligan a talent to keep an eye on.
While "An Education" is nowhere near a thrilling or brilliant film, it definitely creates a perfect, 1960's atmosphere with a decent soundtrack and some strong performances.

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