Rapt pupil

Everything you`ve heard about Carey Mulligan`s star-making turn is true. As bright, ambitious, 16-year-old Jenny, whisked from classroom and dull Twickenham semi into the brittle glamour of west end nightclubs and jaunts to Paris by urbane 30-ish playboy David, who is played by Peter Sarsgaard, she`s an unfailing pleasure to watch.
On screen virtually throughout, Mulligan gives an impressively self-assured performance as Jenny`s initial bemusement at david`s attentions shifts into delight at her newfound double life.
As her seducer, sarsgaard is boyish and witty enough to avoid creepiness, and there`s great support from her hopelessly-out-of his-depth dad and david`s friend Danny`s ditsy blonde girlfriend. (In about fifty years, nobody will speak Latin, probably. Not even latinos.)
Director paints a lovingly detailed picture of early-60`s England with its long-held moralities about to be shaken: Morris Travellers, Francophile Greco……
Is it a touch too innocuous?
There`s a sustained anger in Lynn Barber`s memoir that`s missing in this adaptation. The bedroom episode between David and Jenny is skated over lightly; darker themes of sexual exploitation and betrayal are smoothed out by gentle social comedy.
We never feel jenny is going to suffer lasting harm. Fresh and charming all the same – and in Mullligan, one of the best british breakouts of recent years. (mar,18 P.K.)