An Education

, 100 min, 2009

Carey Mulligan (Jenny Mellor), Olivia Williams (Miss Stubbs), Alfred Molina (Jack Mellor), Cara Seymour (Marjorie), William Melling (Small Boy #1), Connor Catchpole (Small Boy #2), Matthew Beard (Graham), Peter Sarsgaard (David Goldman), Amanda Fairbank-Hynes (Hattie), Ellie Kendrick (Tina), Dominic Cooper (Danny), Rosamund Pike (Helen), Nick Sampson (Auctioneer), Kate Duchêne (Latin Teacher (as Kate Duchene)), Bel Parker (Small Girl). Directed by Lone Scherfig and produced by Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey. Screenplay by Nick Hornby, based on the memoir by Lynn Barber.

Lone Scherfig’s An Education is magical, a delight from start to finish, a true (near-)masterpiece. Period. Its tale is one as old as time, its lead character swept up into a whirlwind and we, the audience, right along with her. The outcome is inevitable, and can be sighted a hundred miles away. We suspect something’s up right from the start. So does everyone in the film. Except for Jenny.

SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943)

In our group, we discussed the relationship between niece Charlie and uncle Charlie as being a somewhat incestuous one – if only implied. We deduced that they are much closer than any uncle and niece we’d ever seen, lending their relationship a somewhat creepy vibe. He is constantly calling her the love of his life, and she calling him similar pet names/seeming to revere him in a way that is…odd. We talked a bit (though it seems like some may have missed it till we discussed it) about the supposed psychic connection that the niece feels toward her uncle – how she seems to believe she summoned him over a great distance with her mind/feelings and how he actually just showed up out of the blue because he needed a place to “hide” (even if in plain sight). We weren’t so sure (at least I wasn’t) about the scenes in which Charlie’s true nature is revealed, so we spent more time discussing the hints along the way which lead niece Charlie to suspect her uncle (see below). If there’s a turning point, it’s where he first grabs her by the wrists and she says “You’re hurting me.” She’s been aware this whole time that he was keeping something from her, but didn’t know what. Now she knows what it means to him to keep such a secret.

FARGO (1996)

This frame occurs during the scene in which Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is in his office and receives the first… “concerned” (?) phone call from Riley Diefenbach from GMAC.