Unlike their American cousins, the boys and girls in English coming-of-age films have to buckle in for an unsentimental ride to the threshold of adulthood. From “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” to “If….” and “Paradise Postponed”, they are less likely to get the girl (or guy) and more likely to get their shins scraped in the rough game that is growing up.

“An Education” is an elegant variation on this venerable British tradition. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a bright schoolgirl trapped in the stifling London suburbs of 1961. Her life is circumscribed by deportment classes, cello lessons, and the forced labor of prepping for her Oxford entrance exams. Her future promises to be as grey as her school uniform. In this pre-feminist era, a woman, even if she is an Oxford graduate, can hope for little more than a teaching job or as her headmistress helpfully suggests, “There’s always civil service.”

One day Jenny and her cello are rescued from a rainstorm by a stranger almost twice her age. David (Peter Sarsgaard) is in possession of a sports car and an exceptional talent for charming people. He coaxes Jenny’s parents, jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour) into allowing their sixteen-year-old daughter to accompany him to a concert, then art auctions and eventually a weekend at Oxford (C.S. Lewis is supposedly to be their chaperone).

David has an unerring instinct for what people want and what they fear. He has no scruples against weaving them into a story that makes doing what he wants seem like it was the other person’s idea. Sarsgaard doesn’t so much create the character of David as he excavates it. He starts with David’s easy charm and works inward to the hustler, petty thief and finally to the wounded manipulator.

While Jenny is exposed in small steps to David’s true character she is also swept away by the glamour of the life he lives. Her affair with David is a lifestyle choice. She loves the jazz clubs and black dresses as much, if not more, than she loves David.

Carey Mulligan’s lithe, changeable face flashes between the schoolgirl and the newly minted woman of the world. While Peter Sarsgaard creates the most compelling character of the film, it is Mulligan’s Jenny that anchors its center. Mulligan received an Oscar nomination for her performance and she earned it. Every scene finds her paired with an A-list talent and she always holds her own.

Emma Thompson grabs hold of her small role as Jenny’s headmistress and creates a gem out of every line she delivers. “I suppose you must think I’m a ruined woman,” Jenny confesses to her. “You’re not a woman.” Thompson replies with a scene-stealing combination of resignation and sarcasm.

And, that may be what defines the magic of “An Education.” It is a pitch-perfect film. Many films with the ambition to tackle complicated subjects end up wallowing in their own earnestness. Writer Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity” and “About a Boy”) builds the tension of his story without overselling it. He gives the actors great lines to work with and they repay the favor.

In the end David’s web of seduction can’t sustain itself and Jenny has to make a choice: to become a permanent resident in a beautiful illusion or grab hold of her future before it slips away.

Directed by Lone Scherfig
Rated PG-13
(Four Stars)