An education

Plot summary:

The main character Jenny is a 16 year old girl who lives in London in the 1960s. Her father hopes for her to go to Oxford university as she is a bright, pretty and hardworking girl. She meets 30 something year old David who is twice her age, he takes her to places she has always wanted to go, such as Paris and to theatre shows. Jenny quickly becomes accustomed to the life David leads with Danny and Helen and her and David's relationship becomes more romantic.

Jenny spends so much time with David, she leaves school and she eventually learns about David exploitive career and learns he is already married. She then decides to go back to school and gets accepted to a place at Oxford University.

Instituational detail:
Director: Lone Scherfig
Writers: Lynn Barber and Nick Hornby

Representation youth in 'An education':

- Strong theme of youths being represented as rebellious
- Well brought up children who obey and listen to their parents, Jenny is very polite towards her parents and has good manners towards them, she is also very well spoken
- Youths care about their education, in contrast to Mia in Fishtank, this is shown in the scene where Jenny's teacher describes her as skills in English

Representation of Britain in 'An education':

- Many scenes show it raining - When Jenny is carrying her cello when David drives beside her in the car
- Jenny and her family often ate breakfast around a table with cups of tea
- Lots of black taxis
- Strong theme on english education - focus on Oxford and Cambridge university


With the movie being set in the 1960s this era often had very strong and traditional gender roles in families. With the women staying at home with men going out to work.