An Education (2009)

Clearly, this movie is all about the acting. Carey Mulligan did a really good as a young girl who extremely naive of the world around her. The movie was just good, though. I've seen 9 of the 10 Best Picture nominees and this is the weakest of the bunch.

England circa 1961, Jenny Miller (Mulligan) is a 16 year old high-schooler who's father (Alfred Molina) is stressing that she concentrate on her studies and her cello so she will get accepted to Oxford. She and her friends are semi-rebellious. They are the "popular" girls and smoke on campus sometimes, but this all never got in the way of her schooling. By chance, she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard). He is at least 10 years older than she is and he is a real charmer. He starts taking Jenny out and buying her lavish things and taking her to locations unknown to her but, this is all getting in the way of her schooling. Oxford may no longer be in her future. However, this new life she has with David may render a tenure at the university moot.

I'd say the age difference between the two was creepy, but the 1960s were a different time. A time when the parents had more of a say in who a teenager dated. That aside, Mulligan played the naivete of the role very well. Does she deserve an Oscar nod for it? Yes, but I don't think she really has a chance to win. The rest of the movie is good, but no more. This movie should have been knocked out of the top prize for (500) Days of Summer, in my opinion. Good, but not great. That's all I can really say.