movie journal: An Education (third draft)

A teacher myself, and someone of a certain age, I found myself more interested in this film by a minor character, Jenny's English teacher Miss Stubbs, than by its young protagonist (Jenny herself). I don't think that this was all about age.

For its first hour and more, "An Education" is a fable of romantic rebellion against loving but conventional parents, who see their daughter's striking academic talents only as a means by which she can enter Oxford in search of an economically promising husband. Jenny herself wants a wider space for passion, for life; in her revulsion against her parents' utilitarian aspirations she thinks she has found a glorious mentor in a handsome and charming man, David, who, as she soon knows, obtains money fraudulently and who, as at first she doesn't know, already has a wife and child and a history of affairs with pretty innocents. The sexual initiation he provides her on her seventeenth birthday is gentle but, apparently (the scene is discreet, all but skipped over), mechanical and short-lived. But she remains dazzled by his other gifts--art auctions, trips to Paris, a veneer of chic fashion and the trappings of culture. When she sacrifices her school work to pursue this affair, she is expelled; and suddenly she has to contemplate Oxford as likely to be unreachable rather than as a vague invitation to social advancement. When it seems to be gone, she begins to understand what else it might be.
Her changed perspective is close to arriving too late. Her headmistress is scornful and unforgiving. But Jenny has the wit and the honesty to submit herself to the authority of Miss Stubbs, an unmarried, thirty-something exemplar of intellectual independence and personal integrity. In the full early glow of her infatuation with David, Jenny has rejected Miss Stubbs, to her beautiful face, as 'dead,' when the teacher tried to call her to something more substantial than seduction. But now, and especially once she has seen Miss Stubbs' modest but stylish apartment, full of real books, Jenny is quick to see how uncomprehending she herself has been. When she asks for help, Miss Stubbs is relieved rather than reproachful, and apparently she also has practical abilities and resources, since the scene soon shifts to Oxford.
It is there that in a voiceover Jenny allows us and herself to see that deep ambiguities remain. While her idea of an education has grown and deepened, she has acquired a certain ruthlessness in her pursuit of it. She tells an undergraduate suitor that she would be thrilled to discover Paris in his company, lying to him in order to encourage his advances and advance the trip. (By this time though she sees things through such new eyes that her words are not far from the truth.) One wonders whether Miss Stubbs, when younger, had to work through similar temptations, and whether her solitary life expresses the cost of her decision, her choices, as well as being the form she has found for her freedom, depth, and authenticity. What sort of liberation will Jenny choose? It will in any case be clear-eyed, and it will be an adult choice. But there is no guarantee that it will be one that will make her a soul-mate of Miss Stubbs. The film ends before we can know; we can only hope for Jenny that a university education will have given her enough of a grounding in the contemporary world and the world of ideas to let her choose an authentic future that matches her vibrancy and openness to growth.
Both characters have some real complexity, but I was moved most deeply by Miss Stubbs's willingness to serve Jenny without hesitation or reproach--indeed with relief, even joy--despite having been savaged by her earlier in the film. Part of the scene's power for me stemmed from Olivia Williams' entirely natural representation of Miss Stubbs, her ability not to overshadow Jenny (whose story it is) or insist in any way on her own virtue. Miss Stubbs becomes an emblem of vocation, not just profession. It's not about her. My gratitude for this moment will stay with me long after the rest of the film, good as it is, has faded.