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The Best Dick Lit Author of All Time Steps Into the 60s

This Ain't High Fidelity, Folks / Dustin Rowles

Trailers | July 15, 2009 | Comments (24)

Nick Hornby has never failed me. He’s underwhelmed me once (Slam), but as both a novelist and as an author has been adapted for the big screen (High Fidelity, About a Boy), he’s batting 1.000, even if all the hits weren’t home runs.

Oh fuck. I just remembered the Farrelly’s heinous adaptation of Fever Pitch, which would ruin that perception but for the fact that the movie had no more to do with the book than Jimmy Fallon has to do with humor. I like to believe, in fact, that those assholes didn’t even get permission from Hornby to make that movie. Let’s all ignore its existence. It’s the way it should be.


Anyway, for the first time, he’s written a screenplay that’s not based on any of his previous work. An Education debuted earlier this year at Sundance and was the subject of a bidding war, one of the very few at this year’s festival. I can’t say for sure exactly why — it doesn’t look like a particularly marketable film. It’s a period piece, set in the 60s, with largely an indie cast (Peter Sarsgaard, Sally Hawkins, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams). And I can’t even admit, based on the trailer, that it looks fantastic. But it did win the Audience Award at Sundance, which is the only award that practically guarantees it’s a great film.

I suspect it’s release was set for the fall so that it’d get some Oscar consideration. And I bet it does, though it’s about as far away from a Nick Hornby story as I could imagine.

Here’s the official synopsis:

An Education is the story of a teenage girl’s coming-of-age set in Britain in the early 1960s on the cusp of the strait-laced, post-war period and the free-spirited decade to come. Directed by award-winning Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, Italian for Beginners) from a screenplay by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy), An Education was adapted from a memoir by journalist Lynn Barber, which originally appeared in the literary magazine Granta.


And here’s the trailer:


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Comments

Nick Hornby can't possibly write about a girl's coming-of-age! He's got a penis!

Posted by: Ariel at July 15, 2009 10:07 AM

From 0:23 on, all I could think was that the large fence posts in the little animated part look like dicks. Aside from that, it looks like a solid film.

Posted by: puddin' cup at July 15, 2009 10:19 AM

Fever Pitch the Colin Firth movie was good.

Posted by: Will at July 15, 2009 10:22 AM

Oh shit, I lived there in the 1960's. I wore that school uniform. I'm having flashbacks. Arggh! Getting old sucks.

Posted by: BWeaves at July 15, 2009 10:24 AM

I wish people would quit calling these "period pieces" as I just think of tampons.

Posted by: BWeaves at July 15, 2009 10:27 AM

It looks as if it has potential. Quite creepy due to the January/December romance element, but decent nontheless.

Posted by: admin at July 15, 2009 10:32 AM

Actually, B, they call them that because it was a pre-tampon era. Look it up. When it was that time of the month they just used the Irish.

Posted by: Optimus Rhyme at July 15, 2009 10:32 AM

I saw this at the Sydney Film Festival. I thought it was a good film, but there was something not quite right about it. Unsatisfying. I read up on the autobiography on which it was based, and came to the conclusion that:

SPOILER WARNING

Basically, the 'older man' was heaps more lecherous in real life, and the teenage girl's attitude to him was (accordingly) more ambivalent. This is captured to some extent, as is her seduction by the high life, but the whole thing is overly romanticised. Which would be fine, except they haven't changed the ending to fit the modifications made throughout the rest of the script. It just doesn't sit well, or make sense. This sort of spoiled what was otherwise a very enjoyable, wonderfully acted and well-made film. And this is entirely the failure of the screenwriter, i.e. Nick Hornby.

Apologies for raining on your parade!

Posted by: Alayna at July 15, 2009 10:42 AM

ARGH! Sally Sparrow! Blink! It's been driving me nuts since this thread went up. She's Sally Sparrow.

Posted by: BWeaves at July 15, 2009 10:55 AM

Alayna, if you're going to give a spoiler, please give the full spoiler. What exactly is the ending vs. the other ending?

Everyone else can just look away now, ok.

I personally always read the last page of a book first, and then the last chapter, so I know where the story is going, and then I start from the beginning to find out how it gets there. It drives darling hubby nuts, but he shouldn't be looking over my shoulder while reading anyway.

Posted by: BWeaves at July 15, 2009 11:04 AM

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Posted by: satokofan at July 15, 2009 11:28 AM

She's Sally Sparrow

I knew that face was familiar.


Olivia Williams in hornrims!


Nick's obviously just trying to get The Smiths to reform by making a movie for one of their single covers. Can't blame a guy for trying, I suppose.

Posted by: Jay at July 15, 2009 12:02 PM

I wish people would quit calling these "period pieces" as I just think of tampons.

Posted by: BWeaves at July 15, 2009 10:27 AM
---
Crocheted tampons?

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at July 15, 2009 12:53 PM

Quilled.

Posted by: Jay at July 15, 2009 12:56 PM

Oh man I am TOTALLY gonna go see this.

Reminds me of Bright Young Things

Posted by: grace b at July 15, 2009 1:19 PM

Carey Mulligan is also in the BBC's Bleak House and she's fantastic! It's nice to see her getting some credit this side of the pond. Also, it's impossible to go wrong with either Emma Thompson or Rosamund Pike.

Posted by: Suz at July 15, 2009 2:39 PM

Oooooooh, yes! Lone Scherfig is one of my favorite female directors! If you've never seen Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, you are missing out. It's on Netflix.

Posted by: Lauren at July 15, 2009 5:32 PM

i actually saw the movie in an early screening last year and it was really great - i highly recommend

Posted by: shy at July 15, 2009 6:25 PM

Sally Sparrow's real name is Carey Mulligan. And she's probably going to become a big star. She got RAVES for her performance in this film when it ran at Sundance. I've seen her in a bunch of British television series (Bleak House, Cranford, Dr. Who), and she has IT. She glows. And she's a really, really good actress.

Posted by: Shawn at July 15, 2009 8:19 PM

Looks like my kind of film. By which, of course I mean 'It's British, you moron, so of course I'll see it'

I'm such a bad Australian. Aren't we meant to hate all things British?

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Posted by: nikkibabes at July 16, 2009 2:53 AM

that DOES look good, particularly the whole Peter Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarsgaaaaaaaaaaaaaard factor.

Mmmmmmmm.

Posted by: missh at July 16, 2009 10:49 AM

Ok, BWeaves, here goes:

(I'm so averse to spoilers that I find it hard to even make one)

SUPER DOOPER SPOILER WARNING

The problem is that they HAVEN'T changed the ending. In real life he was a bit of a creep, and she was always sort of bored by him, and sort of physically repulsed by him. This is kind of captured, I guess, but the choice of actor and the way the role is written - he's just too appealing. So when she goes and accepts his marriage proposal, you don't get all of that ambivalence and parent-spiting etc, that is to say the facts of the story - it almost seems romantic. And then the ending is true to the events - she finds out he has a wife, it's over, and she doesn't see him again. But the way the story is told in the film, that doesn't make sense because how - even if she knows he's married (they try to make it more believable by scripting a confrontation with the wife in which it is revealed that he's done this sort of thing before), how could she accept it the way she does? It just doesn't fly. And she never sees him again! How could you have a relationship like the one depicted in the movie, lose it, and only seem to be angry because your schooling was stuffed up? At 17? It's total bullshit.

So yeah, shit screenwriting there.

Posted by: Alayna at July 16, 2009 11:00 AM

missh just said it all: 'mmmmmmmmmmmm'

This character can not be made 'mmmmmm' as it is not in keeping with the way the story is resolved. It is deeeeeeeply unsatisfying.

A real shame as I can vouch for the Carey Mulligan awesomeness. Everyone and everything is great, it's just that there is a (are) fundamental flaw(s) in the screenplay.

Posted by: Alayna at July 16, 2009 11:03 AM