An Education

A woman's lot at the start of the 1960s wasn't a happy one, at least according to the picture painted here. Even the highly educated find their options reduced to teaching or marriage, and it's debatable which is the more soul-destroying. No wonder young Jenny is so easily seduced by a suave older man and his seemingly glamourous lifestyle. The world of flash cars, expensive clothes and glitzy nightclubs prove far more tempting than studying which only seems to lead to a life of housework while listening to the radio (role model: mum) or endless hours marking essays about ponies (role model: Miss Stubbs) Jenny's mother in particular seems to pine for the life she led pre-marriage, while Miss Stubbs' Cambridge education seems to have merely produced a dowdy stereotype with glasses and a bun. Cannily, David isn't presented as sleazy. We might instinctively mistrust his motives, even before his criminal sidelines are revealed, but never to the extent that we decide Jenny is merely stupid. It's a delicate balancing act but David, it turns out, is an expert manipulator (he knows perfectly how to win over her parents, and to get them to agree to whatever wants while being convinced that it was their own idea) The inevitable betrayal is worse than expected, and leaves the viewer almost as angry and disappointed as Jenny (we too have been taken in by David to a certain extent) The straight and narrow path of education beckons once more, but this time, the Swinging 60s and a whole new world are just over the horizon.