Postcards and Paperbacks

I finally saw An Education. It contained far too much awkwardness for my taste. It's hard enough to live with my own mistakes, not to mention watching Carrie Mulligan making them and then discovering them. Plus two separate meeting-the-father scenes?! Goodness.



Of course, Carrie's character herself is intelligent (far beyond her years) and interesting and thoughtful (and well dressed, as the movie progresses). Watching her find out what it is that she wants, as well as how it is that she can get there is painful, but real. Life itself is Carrie's most important education. Her life deals with lots of feminist concerns--does Carrie want to ride a boy's arm to comfort or want to earn it herself? Is education a means to meeting a man or is it something that is its own end? Are feminine wiles or hard work the way to go?

Carrie is far wiser than her father, but because she's also immature, she deceives her father, and this later backfires. However, in the end, her father and mother stand beside her--bringing her tea and biscuit when times are tough, and letting a bit of romance into their own lives by the end.