Jenny from the block

Maybe it’s too early to call it for sure, but early indications are that 2009 is the year of indie estrogen. Whether it be the boy-consuming succubus in Jennifer’s Body; the spunky, rebellious roller derby girl in Whip It; or even the Amelia Earhart biopic, those of the fairer sex have been taking charge, changing lives and asserting themselves on screens across the country.

Yet, a more thoughtful dimension remains in those stories, namely the painful realization that any gain for women as a whole comes through halting, exacting work by an individual.

The very American Whip It and the newly released, very British An Education are vastly different films, but they do share this essential realization. Consequently, one can now safely list them among the best of the thoughtful, post-feminist films so prevalent this year.

There’s a reason parents warn their children not to talk to strangers, and the rule should apply doubly to strangers who look like Peter Sarsgaard (Orphan). His handsome features never quite hide the disembodied quality he brings to every performance — an attribute used to great effect when he starred as the child kidnapping villain in Flightplan.

Nevertheless, his charms outweigh any fears of his predatory nature when his character, David, begins to enchant a suburb-dwelling but city-dreaming 16-year-old school girl, Jenny (Carey Mulligan, The Greatest). She likes to think she’s different: more mature, intelligent and elegant than her nattering classmates who have to make do with awkward teenage boys and lower scores on their Latin exams.

David, knowing full well the mix of romantic fantasizing and dreary school work which predicates the life of a 1960s teenager who wants to “read English” at Oxford, conjures up the perfect story. He plays the role of the consummate playboy with Jenny, offering her rides in his sports car, trips to exotic locales and high-class classical music concerts.

Based on Lynn Barber’s memoir, the story was adapted for the screen by popular British novelist Nick Hornby, who has a singular talent for creating protagonists defined by an obsession they need to conquer.

In An Education, Hornby appears to reverse his formula a bit, creating a teenage girl whose love for art and everything else high and cultured is her ticket out of the dreary middle class — not something holding her back. Mulligan is winning enough as an actress to exclaim, “I love the Pre-Raphaelites!” with gobs of enthusiasm and no traces of pretension.

Even when David spends an absurd amount of money to buy her a choice artwork, Jenny is too enchanted by his myth to ask any questions. The truth does come out, partially at least, but all is forgiven as David whisks Jenny away to the bright lights and famed shopping districts of Paris. Jenny’s life, related to her classmates through coy hints, becomes something out of a novel — exactly the way she wants it.

Director Lone Scherfig’s (Just Like Home) talents are exceptional in the Paris sequence. Dressing Mulligan up in a pair of Chanel sunglasses and a fur coat, Scherfig conjures up the ghost of Audrey Hepburn and forces the audience to forget about how disturbing the whole affair is. We know something’s wrong when Jenny ambivalently voices the following thought about losing her virginity to David: “I suppose it will be with David, won’t it?”

The magic of the film is the viewer almost wishes for this improbable and frowned upon encounter between a middle-aged man and a 16-year-old school girl to work. In a bleak moment of clarity, she sees no occupation in post-World War II England for a woman with her intelligence and skills.

Of course, post-war feminism did not originate from one girl’s story, and there really is no resolution as to how Jenny deals with the societal forces lined up against her success. The unraveling and burning of the grand myth she and David live in, however, is treated with excruciating detail. Mulligan can transform instantly from a girl wise beyond her years to a scared teenager whose window into the world is rapidly closing.

Even a happy ascendancy in Jenny’s life at the end of the film is not without rewards. The most jaded of viewers still should prove unable to resist this remarkably well-told chronicle of a remarkable young woman. It is very possible to make a film with a developed, teenage female lead and inspire while being fully immunized against the dreaded label of “chick flick” — perhaps that is the real lesson in An Education.

vmain13@umdbk.com

RATING: 4 stars out of 5