I was resistant to seeing this movie at first, since the narrative hinges on an affair between an older man and a sixteen-year-old girl. But a person for whom I have respect said it was one of the most beautiful film she had seen in years, and so I went, looking forward to the beauty.
I still respect this person. I didn’t see the beauty.
There are wonderful things about the film. Carey Mulligan certainly deserves her Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of Jenny. She shines and beams and does a remarkable job of capturing an intense, intelligent, independent teenage girl who is chomping at the bit to get out into the world. Peter Sarsgaard should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor: he is convincing as a seducer, a conflicted seducer who is more than a predator.
But he is a predator, and I do not find that beautiful.
Various reviewers (check out reviews of movies at mrqe.com – Movie Review Query Engine) find David, Sarsgaard’s character, to be confused and childish, and certainly Sarsgaard does a good job of playing these characteristics which contrast sharply with Jenny’s business-like attitude to losing her virginity and experiencing the world. She is seduced more by sophistication, or her perception of sophistication, than she is by love or even by attraction. But Sarsgaard’s acting is so finely nuanced that he is not just clutzy: he is a seducer of spirit and sense, seduced as much as he seduces. By the end of the movie we see that while he might be more, he is also a predator. Craven and weak and an emotional boy, but a predator.
And while I think Mulligan’s acting is excellent as well, the writing of her character might be what stops the movie short of deserving its Best Film nomination. Because she is craven too, to some degree. The life she thinks she wants – and still seems to want at the end of the movie – is based on a veneer and lacks moral conviction. The shock she receives does not mean unrequited love – it’s an interruption of her plans. A veneer is something we lay over a solid base. It cannot be a base itself. And so, although she shows courage in her teenage character by resuming pursuit of her own life (finally, it is a relief to see a story in which sex does not destroy a girl), she seems to be no different morally. I can’t give away any more. But suffice it to say that one phrase in the ending voiceover indicates that she is not much different after her experience than she was before. It’s still sophistication for the sake of sophistication for which she yearns. She hasn’t learned anywhere near as much as she thinks she has.
Involved in academics for quite a while, I have seen too much damage done in the boundary-crossing relationships between older men and female students (and older women and male students, in a couple of instances). In real life I have never seen this be a beautiful thing. I have a feeling that this movie appeals to so many because the technical and artistic aspects are top-notch (except for the writing, for which Nick Hornby has been nominated for an Oscar), and because an older man and younger girl have a sexual and sensual relationship: neither is accountable and she survives. The film displays the fantasies of a lot of older men and a lot of younger women without messy complications. No punishment, no accountability, no loss (in the end), no moral depth, no courage of convictions.
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