Review: An Education (2009)
October 18th, 2009
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The life of a child is an enviable one. The child dreams more—and more often—because, some would say, he doesn’t know any better; he doesn’t know what awaits him. By most definitions, this is ignorance. Jenny (the wonderful Carey Mulligan) may be the most blissful teenager ever, surviving dreary schooldays in 1960s London by immersing herself in all things French: the music of Juliette Gréco, the films, the language. She knows much about art and other things above her class, but has never had the means or opportunity to see them for herself. Older David (Peter Sarsgaard) offers her both on a rainy day, and she accepts with all the wide-eyed eagerness we expect from a girl her age. Over the course of Lone Scherfig’s outstanding film, David opens Jenny’s eyes wider and wider, until the day her eyes can take no more. They’ve seen too much, too fast.
No one is scared of the dark. They are scared of what the dark hides. They, we, are scared of the unknown—bumps in the night, closed doors and shower curtains, attics—because the worst threat is the one we can’t see coming; the one we can’t stop. The best horror taps into our deepest fears: Rosemary’s Baby and the occult, The Exorcist and demonic possession, The Entity and invasion of our personal space. Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston) fall under the third category. Something is inside their home, and it won’t leave. Micah uses some of his money from day trading to buy a camera and record what happens while they sleep. I think you can figure out the rest. What you probably won’t expect, in this age of topless teens and screaming sorority girls, is to actually care about Micah and Katie. We spend the first half hour just getting to know them and seeing how their marriage works. We know it won’t last, but we wish it could. They seem so happy. They seem like us. And if it can happen to them…
With the phenomenal success of the Tod Browning’s Dracula in 1931, Universal Pictures quickly fashioned another monster film in the mold of both Dracula and Frankenstein. Unfortunately for Universal, and for us watching, The Mummy fails to live up to both its predecessors. The plot involves an ancient Egyptian, Im-ho-tep, who is summoned back from the dead by curse and hell-bent on reuniting with his lost love, Princess Anck-es-en-Amon (Zita Johann). The mummy is played by Boris Karloff, who imbues the character with an erudition completely missing from his previous incarnation as Frankenstein’s monster. Whereas in that seminal film he was a monster with a child-like innocence, here he plays a cool, jaded Egyptian with a sense of tragic longing. And yet, despite a richer character, the film suffers from it’s drab, workmanlike cinematography and staging, never allowing the story to progress with any sense of energy or horror. 
