Wednesday, July 07, 2010

An Education

An Education I finally saw the last movie on this year’s Best Picture list and I’m quite underwhelmed.  I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, on the contrary, it’s quite enjoyable, but Best Picture material?  Hardly.

The only justification I can come up with is that An Education is a nice throwback to a long gone golden era when scripts and performances were what mattered most, while the technical department only played a supporting role often largely ignored by the audience, and perhaps many Academy voters wanted to acknowledge and reward that.

Ironically, given that what I prize most in a movie is a good script followed by good acting, I should be thrilled with the Academy (and other awards bodies) for recognizing this movie.  I just didn’t find it very memorable, that’s all.

I also have to admit that I’m a sucker for the technical aspects of movies, whether it be great costumes, intriguing sound effects, wonderful set designs, or, above all, mind blowing visual effects.  As long as all that “stuff” is used in the service of the film as a whole and is not all there is, then I love it.  Unfortunately, nowadays it’s more likely that Hollywood will serve us a flick chock full of expensive visual effects loosely wrapped in a script so unimaginative and unoriginal that the end result is oftentimes simply pitiful.

An Education tells the story of a young English girl at a crossroads: she wants to pursue a higher education in a prestigious college, mostly because that could be her ticket out of an ordinary life, and then she falls for an older man who is unlike anyone she ever met.

The script is slick and solid and the acting is very good on the part of everyone, including Carey Mulligan, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, which also puzzled me.  Yes, she is good, very good, especially at making us believe she’s a teenager, but her performance was several orders of magnitude below Meryl Streep’s in Julie & Julia as well as Gabourey Sidibe’s in Precious or Sandra Bullock’s in The Blind Side (I haven’t seen Helen Mirren in The Last Station yet).  I really have to wonder at how she ended up on this shortlist.

So all things considered, An Education is a good movie showcasing great acting and a good script that unarguably benefited more than any other film from the Academy’s decision to widen the Best Picture field by doubling the nominees.

Grade: 7

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