An Education – 6

Carey Mulligan was charming and believable (cf. Ellen Page in Whip It) as a 17-year-old who is wise beyond her years, but still a few years short of what is needed. The older man who picks her up, played by Peter Sarsgaard, had a corresponding charm, but there was a hole in the character’s credibility. When the plot twist hits at the 7/8 pole, the story before suddenly made no sense.  I was okay if it was all a game, and the roué  didn’t mind ruining a young thing, but (“spoiler alert”) if he was in fact a married man, why bother proposing to her and giving her a ring, why did his friends accept her so warmly, and why leave letters addressed to “Mr. and Mrs.” in his car’s glove compartment? I was expecting tragedy, but was then given a quick, more-questions-raising coda in which everything worked out just fine; and our starlet, instead of being ruined, profited in every way from her indiscretions. The ride to that point – with fine secondary sets of school chums, family and boyfriend’s companions – was more than agreeable in the wonderful English way, which made the film’s collapse in the stretch all the sadder.

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