Customer Reviews

An Education: The Screenplay

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay for the movie and this is what is being sold on Amazon. The book by Lynn Barber is not being published in the U.S. until 2010. Both are titled "An Education." I heard an interview with Ms. Barber and she said there are differences between the screenplay and the book, although she approved the changes to make adjustments for the movie audience.

Jenny wants to be anything but ordinary. In this coming-of-age story, she dreams of a world full of music and dance, while in reality she's stuck in 1960s suburban London. That is until David, an older man, walks into her life and takes her on a whirlwind of a journey, where she loses not just her innocence but a bit of herself at the same time. Hornby's script is excellent, truly showing a middle-class London from yesteryear and wonderfully drawn characters inhabiting the streets. The characters are vivid and interesting, always with a motive. And the diary, which is included with the script, offers an interesting inside look at not just the writing process, but the creation of the film.

Nick Hornby's adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir is beautifully written, and I think it will probably win best adapted screenplay this year. This publication of the screenplay also includes two extra essays by Hornby about the making of the film, and showing it at Sundance which are welcome.

I wish though that we had gotten a slightly less polished draft. It fits so closely to what is in the actual movie that I have a feeling it was retrofitted a little for publication, which is nice for those who just want a transcription of the movie, but for those more interested in the transition from page to screen and the changes that need to be made it may be a little slight (the addition of an alternate ending notwithstanding). Still it is a masterful screenplay of one of the year's best movies.

Do not be confused like I was: the book by Nick Hornby is the movie script and the ohter is the actual story itself.

An Education, by Nick Hornby (200 pgs., 2009). This is the author's thirteenth published work. It contains both an introduction & the screenplay of the movie of the same title. Hornby based this screenplay upon an autobiographical essay published in GRANTA. It was about an affair a young teenage English schoolgirl had with a shady older man in the early 1960's.
In this screenplay, Jenny is a 16-year old schoolgirl attending a posh girl's school. Her parents are upward striving middle class overachievers. Their dream is for their daughter to attend Oxford University, make the proper connections, & secure an upwardly mobile life for herself.
Jenny plays the cello. She has been at a rehearsal. She is waiting for to catch the bus to go home. It is raining. A car stops. She is offered a lift. Friendly banter. She gets in to protect her cello from the rain. David is the driver. He is a charming older man. His banter is quick & witty. She is impressed. He drops her home. A few days later, he just happens to meet her after school. More banter. She agrees to have dinner with him. He even meets her parents. They are charmed by him. They are impressed by the car he drives; a Bentley. They are impressed with his credentials & his connections at Oxford. They see him as a Mentor for their daughter. With his gift of tongue, somehow he gets her parents to beg him to take her to dinner, to take her to recitals, to take her for a weekend trip, to take her to Paris with him for an educational trip. She quickly falls in love with David.
David introduces her to his partner & his partner's girlfriend, both much older than her. Jenny is accepted by all. She wants David to take her virginity when she turns 17. Before that time, she has other sexual activities with him. She is 16 & David is 30 something. She wants to marry him. She drops out of school. She loses her virginity to him. She learns his work is mainly scamming people. Sadly, she learns after all she has done that he is married & has no intention of leaving his wife & kids. She has to pick up the pieces & put her life back in order.
This could be a very salacious book, but there are no dirty parts. Nothing is described. Emotions are used. Words are used. I never thought I'd enjoy reading a screenplay. I did enjoy reading this one.

"An Education" is the heartbreaking coming-of-age story of Lynn Barber (who is renamed Jenny). Jenny is a teenaged Brit, growing up in the very proper early '60s (this is before the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, and Pink Floyd) She finds an older lover in David, her cello teacher. He introduces her to Paris, the refined life... he was basically the metrosexual before such a term was invented. He is a charmer... and a player. He distracts her from her academic life. Jenny is a mere teenager at 16;David is (supposedly) a mature 38. They enjoy a brief, passionate love affair.

It's an expertly written screenplay, and in the end Jenny is tragically and devastatingly blindsided. After David has played fast and loose with her emotions, she comes to see what he really is--an overgrown boy.

*SPOILER ALERT* It turns out David has a wife and 4 year old son. Jenny is heartbroken for the wife David failed to be man enough to acknowledge- and that she was deceived. David definitely lacks High Fidelity

"An Education" is a poignant, powerful story. The ending had me tearful. It's that powerful. Hornby understands the human heart and the human condition.

In a whirlwind tour of expanding horizons, the plot suspense centers around the question: Will she wreck her life, and just how badly?

I give this screenplay-book 5 stars, for 3 reasons:

(1) the spot-on description of a teenage girl (Jenny) getting to know people who are exciting, glamorous, and worldly and who have different values and ethics than her family. She is not honest when discussing them with her parents, and not entirely honest with herself.

(2) Although very entertaining, there are some major life lessons in this book, some more subtle than others. Because of this, it seems a good gift for teen girls, although I know some women in their 40's who still haven't figured out some of the lessons. As a gift idea for teen girls, be aware that it frankly discusses some topics, and some parents may object to that.

(3) The writing is much better quality than most screenplays (although that is faint praise, because most screenplays are so bad).

Reading this took me back in time to my teen years; I remember having many of the same thoughts and attitudes as Jenny. There but for the grace of God ...

A quote from Hornby that describes Lynn Barber (and Jenny) as "a suburban girl who's frightened that she's going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city".

This book is set in the 1960's in a household that seems conservative today. Younger readers may be surprised by the parents' attitude towards young marriage, and the widespread expectation that respectable married women would not have careers or educational goals.

This book is inspired by a memoir by Lynn Barber, reworked by Nick Hornby into a screenplay version, with some fictionalized details. I have not yet read the complete memoir by Lynn Barber, but plan to.

I thought I was getting a novel...not a screenplay. I'd rather watch the movie then read a screenplay

I am very upset and shocked to learn that the book I purchased is not the novel, it is the screen play. It does not say anywhere in the description that it is a screen play. I am upset I paid money for this. Don't buy it:(

He adapted it from Lynn Barber's story and book for a screenplay for the recent movie.