Grade: A-

A sophisticated innocent must choose between the glamorous and the mundane in this abundantly rich character study of social expectations and mores in 1961 suburban London. One’s cup runneth over with how stereotypical every single character potentially could be, but how deeply complex and rewarding they actually are.

Great writing meets great performances.

Carey Mulligan is rather glorious as a 16 year old on the cusp of adulthood who follows the letter of the law as set down by an over-eager father – get perfect grades, cello as hobby, get into Oxford – while a rebellious and precocious streak percolates just beneath her surface. It’s no great plot surprise when she finds an older, more worldly man and his entourage undeniably alluring, but there is a pulsating pleasure far beyond her years, a joy in her corruption that is as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking. Parents are deceived with a twinkling eye, led down a garden path they so dearly want to be led down, a bit of charm and grace in lives far too static and stable.

As the corrupting influence, Peter Sarsgaard is a venomless villain – a crooked cad yet a captivating romantic, as trapped by circumstances of his own making as she is by her sex and class – his desire to be free, albeit pathetic and a tad pathological, is surprisingly multidimensional, sad and wanting.

The supporting cast is equally fine, especially Alfred Molina as a strict dullard of a dad who wants what’s best for his daughter in the confines of her limited possibilities – a scene it which he conveys without quite acknowledging his trust has been betrayed is so sadly tender it aches. Dominic Cooper is a coconspirator with a conscience (if only a touch of one) somewhat smarmy and willing to deceive but without relish. Rosamund Pike is effortless as an arm candy moll who has guiltlessly made her deal with the devil, and Olivia Williams is the grave teacher who cares, wound almost as severely as her hair but who sees the inevitable fall off a cliff with a single minded clarity of purpose.

There is an irresistible ease that permeates the film, the movie’s center deliriously culpable in her own seduction, less by the man of her infatuation than by all the hedonistic possibilities he represents – a life of music, fine dining, designer apparel and French cigarettes. When her principal (the always perfect Emma Thompson) effectively offers her a life of boredom, hard work, and ultimately the ability to teach or find work as a civil servant, we’re ready to run out the school house door faster than she is.

Nick Hornby has written a smart, crisp, understated screenplay that allows actors to plumb subtle depths of character and motivation, Director Lone Scherfig captures both the drab and repressive with the grand and carefree – somehow, she manages to make the torrential rain and dark clouds of London simultaneously sensual, playful, and yet at least somewhat foreboding.

In the end, innocence prolonged is perhaps more blissful than worldly experience. Perhaps, Paris is better experienced later in one’s life than earlier.

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1174732/