I was long ago seduced by the premise of An Education - the glamorous post-Beatnick, pre-Beatle world of early 1960s England where the rebellion of the decade's later years were just stirrings of restlessness. I finally was able to watch the film the other night, and I must say that I was not disappointed in the slightest.  As I'm sure a lot of other girls have, I identified so much with Jenny that it was almost frightening. There was a scene when Jenny tells her paramour David that when she gets to university, "I'm going to read what I want, and listen to what I want, and I'm going to look at paintings and watch French films, and I'm going to talk to people who know lots about lots." And I swear that I said the exact same thing to my friends almost two years ago.
I'm still much of the same person I was in high school - I still have an intense thirst for knowledge and experience, and a never-ending desire to get more than what I have (I believe it was best described in Vicky Cristina Barcelona as "chronic dissatisfaction"). I read books about famous figures because it offers me a chance to live vicariously through their exploits. Yes, maybe I'm not the one hooking up with Mick Jagger or hanging out in opium dens, but curled up in my own imagination I am almost there.
Like Jenny, I have an obsession with the French. My father's family is mostly French so I excuse my preoccupation with New Wave cinema, and albums by Greco and Peyroux on that. I listen to French music a lot of the time - most of my friends don't quite understand it, but they've grown to like the kitschy tunes. I'm not to the point where I smoke Gauloises (merely on principle) and speak interchangeably with French and English, but I was known to speak a tad like Holly Golightly and pull out phrases like "quelle surprise" and "tres fou" and whatnot.  I've never been seduced so entirely as Jenny was by an older gentleman like David, but I have been seduced many-a-time by the idea of these men. The ones who know their Brioni from their Zegna, who want to educate you as well as out you up on a pedestal. It's really quite intoxicating to feel so inexperienced, and be loved for it as opposed to condescended by it.
An Education is a film that I will gladly add to my DVD collection - after all, it would be nice to visit a soulmate such as Jenny from time to time.