9/10
I'm a sap for a good coming-of-age tale an An Education, while imperfect, is up there with the best of them. Carey Mulligan is wonderful in the lead role of Jenny and the actor playing her father, Alfred Molina, is tremendous. Peter Sarsgaard is also great in the role of Jenny's much older love interest and never once crosses over into creepiness, although his character does leave you on edge and guessing at his motives for most of the film. The movie is very well-told and interesting throughout and has a couple of completely arresting and shattering scenes I won't mention because you should see them yourself.
As far as its imperfections, read kihei's review on page 1 for a good summary of where the film falters (a friend and I raised the question "what would the lesson have been if things hadn't worked out the way they did for Jenny?" and were similarly left without an answer), and I also found the end of the film terribly rushed. It literally felt while watching it that I was seeing a hack editing job to get the movie down to an "acceptable" length and that there's a director's cut or extended edition just waiting for a DVD release. But that said, if this isn't nominated for Best Picture (and Carey Mulligan should get a nod for Best Actress too) I'll eat my hat.
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