AN EDUCATION/HOW NOT TO GET ONE

Nick Hornby’s novels About A Boy and Fever Pitch were quickly made into films (from scripts by NH). Here he delivers another topical tale.

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Topical? Yes. And then some.

Indeed, the pitch is so spot on you have to wonder why you didn’t think of it first.

Teenage girl’s coming-of-age set in London in the early - about to swing - 60s.

Or, if you would like more detail: witty and attractive 17 year old gets swept off her feet by 30 something wrong guy, who drags her away from sane suburbia and Oxford studies through a mine field of chic dinners, smoky clubs and trips abroad, raising the question, will she sink or will she swim?

Oh, Hornby, you clever lad! How do you keep hitting the jack pot?

Except Hornby can’t take the credit for this particular thunderbolt. Rather it is an excerpt from a memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber.

In other words, it is more historical fact (or as near as Barber’s memory serves) than Hornby fiction (although he is certain to have had some fun caressing the source material.

Whatever the degree of truthfulness, being a Hornby derivative, it has attracted some typically stellar talent, beginning with seductive Carey Mulligan (main photo), as the teenager in trouble (building on her success in When Did You Last See Your Father?).

Mulligan is admirably backed up by various sparkling Brits, beginning with Sally Hawkins, who has just won the Berlin Festival’s Best Actress award for Mike Leigh’s new film Happy-Go-Lucky (both pictured above); Alfred Molina, as the girl’s father; Orlando Bloom, sans pirate gear at last: Rosamund Pike; Olivia Williams; and Emma Thompson.

From further afield, from Illinois USA, in fact, comes the principal blackguard and teen corrupter, Peter Sarsgaard.

A further foreign touch is thrown in by the hand of Danish director by Lone Scherfig, who made a big mark with the curious Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself.

The film will shoot in London in March and April

Filed February 21, 2008.