Friday, October 23, 2009

Best Learn Something. Maybe. If You Feel Like It.

I saw that new movie "An Education" last night. It started out real good, but by the end it was pretty much just "all right."

The best parts are:

  • The Music. Lots of real good early 60's/late 50's rock and soul songs I'd never heard before.
  • The Look. Lots of real cool early 60's British clothes, cars, furnishings, locations, dancings, etc.
  • The Actors. The cast was just great. I especially liked the scoundrel's buddy's girlfriend. Turns out she was kind of dim.
  • The way the scoundrel wins over the girl's dad. Perhaps the most entertaining element of the tale.
  • That the movie isn't as creepy as you might fear it would be--being something of a Lolita story, but with a smaller age difference. Not that it's without creepiness. I do not mean to say that.

The not best parts are:

  • The Third Act. You know things aren't going to go well when a movie is about a scoundrelous guy in his 30s dating a 16 year old girl. I braced myself for something sinister, but the big reveals are pretty non-dramatic. What starts out as pretty interesting winds up a rather neatly bundled morality play. The movie starts like an episode of an excellent hour-long primetime drama but ends like 30 minute sitcom.
  • The Moral: If you were wondering, it seems to be "Stay in school" and "16 year olds don't know everything they think they do."
My boy Roger really liked this movie and he provides a link to an article telling the story of the true story this movie was based on down at the bottom of his review.

One More Thing: If you've seen the movie--Do you think the woman that the girl visits near the end of the movie is the same woman that was crossing the street in the rain at the beginning?

2 comments:

AM said...

When are you going to post about our new LA friends already? Never? Is it too special to share with the world?

Bek said...

i'm not kidding, you were born to be a critic.

critique me. please.