Just such a good film. Bittersweet, beautiful, funny. Carey Mulligan, as I expected she would be, was truly fantastic - I cannot honestly think of anyone else who could have played the role so perfectly; she captured the trapped, intelligent, middle class side of her character candidate so aptly, with tactful and dry humour, and yet had enough glamour to be equally believable as the nearly-elegant girl who dreams of Paris and leaving her pre-destined path to Eng Lit at Oxford - the girl who desperately wants to keep forever the fiercely glittering lifestyle she stumbles into.
Sarsgaard is excellent as David, who meets Mulligan's character Jenny in the pouring rain and offers to drive her cello home, rather than her herself - he tells her that of course he wouldn't expect her to get into a car with a strange man, but, as a music lover, he was worried about the instrument.
'all that poetry, and all those songs, about something that lasts no time at all.'
I think another mention has to go to Alfred Molina, who plays Jenny's unsophisticated, yet well-meaning, father. He's really funny in the role, yet also pulls of the more sentimental parts when he has to realize his mistakes and try to comfort his daughter, a situation that it is evident he is unused to. His speech to a crying Jenny, and the accompanying offering of tea and custard creams, is very heartfelt and yet not at all corny.
Almost everything about it is believable. The love, the hurt, the chat between schoolgirls about 'Jenny's new boyfriend.' Perhaps the ending was too perfect, perhaps not. I think I will have to wait until I see the film a second time to decide what I think about that. But I think that, regardless, it's an amazing film... Oscars are definitely around the corner.
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