{"id":1015,"date":"2009-11-16T17:57:01","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T21:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2009-11-16T18:04:46","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T22:04:46","slug":"last-night-we-went-to-see-an-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/?p=1015","title":{"rendered":"‘An Education’ – memorable performances, clumsy ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"370\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For me, the buzz and whether or not a film is Oscar-worthy bears no relation to my enjoyment.\u00a0 I want to be moved by extraordinary performance, story, dialog and imagery.\u00a0 This movie succeeds in a few of those areas, but fails notably in the ending.\u00a0 We got an amazing performance from young Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a gifted high school senior with dreams of a glamorous life in Paris.\u00a0 Peter Sarsgaard was his usual, reliable, top-notch self.\u00a0 And then there were two great treats in smaller roles from Alfred Molina as the well-meaning, but misguided father and Olivia Williams as the supportive but concerned teacher.<\/p>\n

Mulligan’s performance alone is enough tojustify seeing the film. The script is subtle, but her face and body movement, in short, what she does without dialog, really makes this something special.\u00a0 And the story is presented with a tender touch and the specter of bad things (deceipt, betrayal) is managed carefully.\u00a0 In the span of a feature film we see a lot of genuine character growth, packed into a stylish and entertaining film.<\/p>\n

The problem is with the ending.\u00a0 And, as one of my companions mentioned, that’s the impression with which you leave the theater.\u00a0 It’s not a disaster, but it’s a disappointment.\u00a0 The turn in the plot is perfectly fine, but the smooth flow of story-telling stops abruptly.\u00a0 The movie’s resolution, which is perfectly reasonable is so haltingly portrayed that we couldn’t help but wonder what happened.\u00a0 Did a test audience tell them to put a tighter bow on it?\u00a0 Was the movie cut down or elongated?\u00a0 It’s hard to say, but something is clearly wrong with the ending.<\/p>\n

Aside from that significant criticism, it’s still a nice movie with an impressive lead performance.\u00a0 Sarsgaard is positively generous in facilitating Mulligan’s big moment.\u00a0 He just does a great job of keeping the focus on her.\u00a0 And even with all she goes through in this coming-of-age story, the transformation never covers up the little girl that you meet in at the beginning of the film.\u00a0 It’s just a shame, that by the end, her story has inadvertently run off the tracks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For me, the buzz and whether or not a film is Oscar-worthy bears no relation to my enjoyment.\u00a0 I want to be moved by extraordinary performance, story, dialog and imagery.\u00a0 This movie succeeds in a few of those areas, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[906,902,903,905,907,904],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1025,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions\/1025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}