Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tunenut (A) on November 24, 2009 at 18:38:31

Earlier this year, Peter Sarsgaard was in Orphan. The orphan, for those who have not seen it, turned out to be bad news, as anybody who's seen that kind of movie in the last 50 years, would have expected. Late in the movie, there was a ludicrous revelation about her. Sarsgaard, playing the father, was probably making a good paycheck, but he won't be getting any Oscar nominations for that role.

He redeems himself to a great degree in An Education. This is a very interesting period piece in London of the early 1960s, based on a true memoir (however the truth has been compressed an altered for movie purposes).

A 16 year old student, unknown to me, is bright and studious, working to get into Oxford. Her parents keep her from distractions that don't serve this goal. She meets an older man, played by Sarsgaard. He is rich, cultured, kind and polite. She is swept off her feet, introduced to the world of fine restaurants, classical music concerts, jazz clubs, and discussions of art. It's all heady stuff and she's the envy of her classmates. Her parents, to her surprise, are also charmed by him.

And the relationship with the older man becomes a sort of education outside of school, an education about life.

The evocation of the period is pitch perfect- this is sort of a transatlantic bookend to Mad Men, taking place in the same period in New York- gender roles are strictly defining, but it's the 60s and changes are coming. (As in Mad Men, smoking is tres chic.)

Sarsgaard is really good here, as a chameleon figure, whose many layers are revealed slowly in the course of events.