In 1961 the London suburb of Twickenham, location of ‘An Education,’ was suffocatingly middle class. Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a bright 16-year-old with sights set on Oxford, is picked up by David (Peter Sarsgaard) an older, exotic man and she seizes the chance to escape her boring existence, in those days considered a recipe for ruin. Jenny scorns headmistress (Emma Thompson’s) warning after David cons her parents into letting him take her out. After being blown away by a whirlwind of new experiences, reality sets in. This is a very good film but screenwriter Nick Hornby (About A Boy) unfortunately softens the film’s dramatic peaks. ‘An Education’ came painfully close to home for me, as I was going through my own rebellion then. Before the hippie culture, young people unhappy with the system had nowhere to turn. Jenny wanted to skip Oxford. In my case, I dropped
