So this is the story of a super-achieving British girl who is orienting her whole life around going to Oxford, but then a creepy/charming older man sort of seduces her. And the thing I like about it is, it’s not quite either of the movies it could have been – it’s neither entirely a “beware of ruination and guard your virtue, girls!” movie, nor is it a “manic pixie dream guy frees dreary girl for life of adventure” movie. And I guess that’s kind of spoilery, but I don’t think I can talk about this one without being a little spoilery, so oh well.

So the thing is, at one point, she is going to drop out from school to take up with this man, which is sort of obviously a horrid idea for a 17-year-old girl… except, it’s 1961, and as she rightly notes, the only apparent purpose of getting an education is to meet a man (or, failing that, to go into teaching oneself) and if you can shortcut that process, then why bother with all the Latin?

And you and I know the answer, which is that it doesn’t stay 1961, and that if she gets her education, then she can be prepared for a future in which women are grudgingly, tentatively allowed to be actual people. But there’s no way for her to know that, of course. And given the world she’s living in, the “right” choice isn’t nearly as obvious as it is to us.

Even at the end, after (SPOILERS FOR ENDING OF MOVIE) he is revealed to be a cad and she does go back to school, there’s a sort of (unintentional?) poignant note to the happy ending, as she finds herself (willingly, happily) pretending to be the naif she no longer is in order to seem properly innocent and girlish for her college boyfriends. And you sort of wish that she could be living in a better world, but alas, it’s still 1961, and anyway, if we’re better than that in 2011, I’m not sure we’re yet in a position to throw too many stones.

As a side note, one of the characters in the movie is Olivia Williams, Adelle from The Dollhouse, and she’s sort of excellent, reminding me about how she was basically the real center of that show. She deserves to be the lead in a movie, I believe.