An Education

Parents of teenage girls in the 21st Century should pause to consider that limiting their daughter's internet access so that they don't meet predatory men online isn't foolproof -they could meet a predatory man in the street, while waiting for a bus - and that's what An Education is about - a teenager who meets a man while she's waiting for the bus, and the consequences of that meeting for her and the entire family.

This film is set in London in the 1960's and while the schoolgirl-dates-older-man scenario gives you a feeling of foreboding you also see that its tremendous fun for a smart schoolgirl whose world revolves around homework and youth orchestra to be taken out to concerts and away to Paris for the weekend by a man who manages to convince her parents its a good idea.

The unfolding of the plot is one of the joys of the movie - others include a great script, great acting and sixties clothes, cars and attitudes. My few criticisms are that Jenny seemed too self-possessed a teenager to be entirely believable and that there was a little too much explanation at the end of the film (it could have been five minutes shorter and not suffered at all) but I enjoyed it completely. It's not a straightforward romance, but its all the more absorbing because of that.

Cleverly, hints about the ending are dropped throughout the film but I only noticed them in retrospect -- Ian

Anne's rating 4.5/5 Ian's rating 4/5