Lone Scherfig’s An Education is easily one of my favorite films of the year and it’s in no small part because of the masterful direction from this talented Danish filmmaker. One of many things that works so perfectly in this coming-of-age film about a young lady named Jenny (Carey Mulligan) who falls for an older man (Peter Sarsgaard) in 1962 London, besides Nick Hornby’s fantastic screenplay, is that the entire ensemble registers. Mulligan gives the best performance of the year and the overall ensemble – Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson, Olivia Williams, Sally Hawkins – may be unmatched in 2009. When an entire ensemble shines this brightly, one must look to the director’s ability to bring out so many fantastic performances. The funny and interesting Scherfig recently sat down with us for a one-on-one interview about the film, her great actresses, and the tough decisions her characters have to make.

(Note: Nothing is overtly spoiled but the final act of the film is definitely discussed and could be seen as something you might want to read after seeing the film. We’re just warning you.)

MovieRetriever: To me, the film is at least partially about a life-changing decision. Did you draw at all on a personal moment? Did it influence or cross your mind at all?

LONE SCHERFIG: I think it was the other way around. It was when film school decided they wanted to accept me. That was a really big day. A great relief that it would be possible to do what I wanted to do. Once you're in that school, they don't throw you out again. It's like what Jenny says, "No one got thrown out of the orchestra, which is always the mark of a cultural triumph." I have something in common with her, which is that appetite for books, films, music, and everything that she loves and can't do in school but that I could do in school. I could go to Paris to study when I was 17 and I did that. I studied films and saw a lot of the films that this film is cinematically related to. I'm 15 years younger than Lynn Barber, who wrote the story. Because of that and because I'm coming from a country where education is free and at a time when you felt safe as a 17-year-old. You could travel around Europe and nothing could happen to you. Or so you thought. So, I was very privileged. I didn't have to make the choices that Jenny did.

MovieRetriever: Naturally, I have to follow up on "the films that this film is cinematically related to." What are those?

SCHERFIG: There is a relation to French New Wave in the heritage and the style and some of the moments because we see things through Jenny's eyes. It's a way to make a world that's not necessarily very glamorous look glamorous to the audience. There's no room in that film that's more glamorous than this one [we're in a bland conference room], but we try to shoot it in a way so you get that innocence that specific for that period in film history.

MovieRetriever: And that period in actual history.

SCHERFIG: Yeah. That's true. Exactly.

MovieRetriever: A colleague of mine said after the screening that to be in England in the early 1960s was to be at the epicenter of the universe.

SCHERFIG: Yes. While this film happens, The Beatles would be in the recording studios. There is a cultural explosion right after the film. Jenny is very much like that. She wants something that she doesn't know is happening. Whereas here you had things develop with more ease and harmony. Of course, it was provocative, but it was less of an explosion and more of a national development.

MovieRetriever: At the same time, I feel like there's a sense of darker things to come in the trajectory of Jenny. Without giving away the final act of the film, the 1950s are often seen as a more innocent time and the film could be read as a transition to a darker one. There's a line in the notes from Nick Hornby that says "David is a taste of things to come." Do you agree with that and how so?

SCHERFIG: That's in a positive way. It's like a whiff of the West End that comes into that drab home. There's one line where she says "It's probably the best that the Russians are going to come because this is so boring anyway." It's not at all a world where ... Well, actually it's a really interesting question. Since the father is so afraid of everything and so much part of their world is the fear of anything that comes from the outside. So, they would come straight from saying goodbye to the war to worrying about the Cold War. Jenny tries to find space in between. And the right to have fun, which is what David obviously represents. He says, "If it wasn't for me and the way we live, there'd be no fun." To have the right to do something because you'd like to.

MovieRetriever: But isn't it important that she has both? That she has this experience? Don't you think it's a misreading of what happens in the film to say "her dad was right"? While parts of what she goes through are a negative experience, don't we need those negative experiences to define who we are in a lot of ways?

SCHERFIG: That's a good question. There was a version of the ending where she said "We had fun but I had fun with the wrong person at the wrong time." I think that makes a difference. Would she have been better off without having met David? Hmmm. I'm not sure. Particularly because I really love David. She may be very hurt but her world is still enriched by having met him.

MovieRetriever: And isn't hurt an educational experience?

SCHERFIG: Yeah. Maybe. But if you read the original piece, Lynn Barber's piece, I think she feels that he stole some of her youth and that he made her never trust anyone, but that made her a better journalist. She doesn't say that, but the underlying point of her story is that because this happened to her, she's suspicious. She always tries to see behind the facade of the person she's interviewing. And that is a major loss of innocence. She can't trust people. And, still, yeah, you're right. Would she have been better off without David? I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

MovieRetriever: I'm glad that it's open to interpretation.

SCHERFIG: But I sometimes feel that the way that he seduces her and her parents and the audience and the performance that Peter gives, which is really carefully structured – what piece of information you get at what point and how much to give away so it doesn't come as a surprise when the secrets are revealed and is still not predictable – it’s a real balancing act that he's doing. And this element of seduction was so important ... Sorry, I'm thinking that maybe you're right. Maybe she is better off with him than without him because he LOVES her. And the moments that they have together that you wouldn't want to be without.

MovieRetriever: I think she learns a lot of self-esteem. She's not just one of those little girls in the orchestra. Even if it doesn't turn out well, it's important to be put on a pedestal every once in awhile. He certainly does that.

SCHERFIG: Yes. Yes.

MovieRetriever: And it goes back to the French New Wave films you were talking about. A lot of those films were about living lives that weren't monotonous, straight lines – ones that had ups that also needed downs.

SCHERFIG: That's true. No, you're right. And she did not want to be a teacher or a spinster. And, actually, later on she became a journalist for Penthouse. You might think that if it hadn't been David then it might have been someone else. At least he loved her. And if she had stayed with Graham [the dull boy her age down the street] then there would have been no film. (Laughs.) Maybe Revolutionary Road. (Laughs.)

MovieRetriever: Right. Were you a fan of Nick's work before this one?

SCHERFIG: I liked his books. I read them when I could get them.

MovieRetriever: Do you think there's a thematic comparison between his books and the story he's adapting here? Fans of his books – will they see his voice?

SCHERFIG: Definitely. In the dialogue. Lynn has some humor and some sarcasm in the original piece but Nick has definitely stressed that. I think you'll see Nick's genuine interest in other people and the way he cares for Jenny. Since Lynn is a journalist writing about herself, it's much more dry and self-ironic. Nick, because he's writing about someone else and because he's a novelist, he's fictionalized layers that are already in her piece. The confluence between Jenny's coming of age and London's coming-of-age is definitely in the piece already. I think Nick has emphasized how much each of the characters are products of that time. Those types would be different ten years later. THREE years later. It's like you enter this little time bubble and there's this group portrait. Some of the characters are in Lynn's piece but you don't get details.

MovieRetriever: What does Carey bring to the film that other actresses would not have?

SCHERFIG: When you are looking for an actress and you wonder what the film will look like. The film that was in my mind that had Carey Mulligan in it had a fragility that I really got from the first moment I saw her. She pitches her lines with truth. There's no phoniness. And yet she has craft enough to control the development. She was really young but very mature, poised, and stylish at the same time. And that combination, I thought worked so well. We were a bit worried that she was too young. We saw the tests and, of course, she aged while we were trying to get financing together. Part of the reason I think we were worried is because she did so well on the test. You'd think she was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl. [Mulligan was 22 when they shot the film.] She's really good. And she can carry the film, which is different than being able to play the part. It's a different skill.

MovieRetriever: Yes. Not to take anything away from her, but you occasionally see a screen charisma that feels sort-of God-given. And she's got that. Presence.

SCHERFIG: That's true. And you don't want it to be that way because I love the craft but there is something that's just not clear. It's so old-fashioned to talk about screen quality but it does exist. Some of these stupid, banal clichés about the camera loving some people are unfortunately true.

MovieRetriever: And what she does in that shouldn't be diminished at all.

SCHERFIG: And I told her to love the camera. She doesn't have a huge ego and she's not someone who would really embrace the camera. She doesn't like to be photographed. But she could feel the camera as a thing that would help your performance and tell the story and work with the lens and angles, knowing that we're making the same film. It's not someone trying to shoot you. It's someone trying to catch your performance, so help them do that. That, I hope, has been my contribution to the career she's going to have. It's already happening.

MovieRetriever: How is the process of this film – working with English actors – different than working with Danish ones?

SCHERFIG: They're more disciplined. It's a class society. There is a culture of excellence in England, meaning that they assume that they're world champions, which they are in some things. The level of ambition is much higher than I'm used to. It's wonderful to work with people who are as skilled, prepared, and yet humble as they are. It's a handicap that I'm not English, but, on the other hand, I have such admiration for dialect and how beautiful the lines turn out. I want to go back and shoot there again.

MovieRetriever: Does anything change when someone of Emma Thompson's caliber comes to the set?

SCHERFIG: She's very generous and out-going. We shot everything in one day but I could have worked with her for weeks. She's such a great actress and a lot of fun. But the whole deal was that it was all the time she could give the project. I know that Carey said it was one of the best days she's ever had. She was enjoying it. She talks like a machine gun.

MovieRetriever: You infamously said in a Sundance interview that you weren’t satisfied with this cut of the film. Is that still true?

SCHERFIG: Did I say that? That’s how it is with ALL films. It’s a way of saying goodbye or accepting that … There are so many compromises in all of your work and the job is to compromise in the place where it doesn’t harm your project.

MovieRetriever: Where are the compromises here?

SCHERFIG: We shot very fast. I could have used much more time. But all directors will say that. Peter Jackson will say that the budget isn’t big enough. It’s a way of saying goodbye and it’s also that you end up with a cut that is … Was it Orson Welles who said, “You never leave a film, they take the film away from you.”