• What’s Good: “Education” features three perfectly fine performances. That’s the only thing that sets this film apart.
• What’s Not: Coming of age + private school + 60s = seen it before. Bland writing and uninspired directing. Bah humbug.

As the fifth highest rated film of the year (Metacritic) with 7 perfect scores and countless other fawning cheer-a-thons one would think this film would have more to offer. It does not. This is a very simple yet also a very assuming film. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cute little movie at its heart but that’s all it is. So while what they say is true (it is nice) and what happens comes awards time might be deserved (Carey Mulligan is guaranteed a nomination) but “An Education” is just the kind of shallow feel good story to win over the hearts of America’s old and tired who want to experience this story without being challenged in any sort of way.

Ms. Mulligan, the young lead, is winning to be sure but not very subtle in her emotional pallet. She’s smart, she’s nice, she’s a romantic, she’s a, well, Mary Sue. I blame the writing more than the performance. Mulligan’s Jenny is an overachieving student who experiences love (or lurve) for the first time but the story she finds herself in does not rise to her level of academic excellence. Ah, but there’s a twist (but not really): set in an all girls private school (insert naughty thought here) during the roaring-or-rocking-or-whatever-60s, the education in question is not one of acquiring knowledge but experience in ”the school of life.” Wow, groundbreaking. It’s not like we’ve ever seen a plot chronicling a youngins’ personal awakening set against the backdrop of social upheaval (YOU SEE, BECAUSE THE TWO PARALLEL EACH OTHER) before, oh no, never, I can’t even wrap my brain around this groundbreaking concept. Despite such trite sentiments, this gifted young girl with her gifted young dimples has the ability to melt away even my icy cynicism–she’s like the Nermal of teenage girls in that respect. Mulligan’s Jenny is an intellectual shut-in who is a willing prisoner of her demanding father and silent mother. Her bubble is popped (along with a few other things) upon the arrival of an older man into her life in act one. From Latin to lipstick, Jenny suddenly finds herself swept away by a shady rich man and her family is all too willing to allow Jenny to go down this path because the man is rich and powerful. Or is he? Will she stay with the dubious cad or pursuit a life of the mind at Oxford University??? You know the answer. What I’ve just said is all there is in this picture. The plot is so linear that watching it play out provides almost no measure of surprise or insight. It goes where it must and where it has before in countless stories about young naive love.

The film might as well have been written by a machine which, looking at who actually wrote it, author Nick Hornby, that’s half true because he hasn’t written anything true to his style or particularly original or not corny since High Fidelity. The catch in terms of how one judges this kind of film is that the lead is so winning that the flaws inherit in the by-the numbers drama are blurred to a point of forgiveness. Just as effective in an altogether different way is the jail bait scouting suitor played by Peter Sarsgaard (awesome actor, and doing a pretty good Brit accent as far as I can tell) who walks the line between charming and creepy so well that I would say the success of the film hinges upon his ability to make us like him despite our Spidey-senses tell us that some thing not quite right is going on here. While Mulligan will sponge up all the accolades (her cute-as-a-button newness is impossible to resist–could this be the second coming of Sally Field? ooooooh I hope so!) the real show stealer is the great and gifted and usually underrated Alfred Molina who plays her her father, a hysterical and peevish oaf that represents old England with their old values. The only problem is that he’s more lovable than than everybody else (made even more so because this is Doc Ock and the Mexican from “Maverick” we’re talking bout). Even here though, and all across the board, that’s all there is to it.

In the end gives me no pleasure to be hard on such a harmless and likable film. But it gives me even less pleasure to watch something that plays it safe, has no fresh ideas and still gets awarded for its mediocrity.

Grade: C+