The Girl On The Train

The conflict at the heart of French drama “The Girl On The Train” is the plucked-from-the-headlines, real-life story of a gentile girl who claims to be the victim of a violent, anti-Semitic attack on the Parisian Metro. Yet the movie is about a lot more — and a lot less.

For one, it provides no answers whatsoever on lead character Jeanne’s motivation for inventing the crime. The audience is only given her sheepish admission of “I don’t know … I wanted to be loved, and the opposite happens.”

Instead, director André Téchiné takes us inside the summer of a French teenage girl, complete with the angst of being unable to find a job to pay for her Italian vacation (oh, such woe) and the requisite boy drama. In fact, throughout the entire movie, the only undercurrent of threat emanates from her relationship — the made-up crime is entirely out of left field, with no foreshadowing for its development.

Jeanne (Émilie Dequenne) lives with her mother (Catherine Deneuve), and seems to have few interests besides her headphones and roller-blades. That is, until she meets the inscrutable and intense wrestler Franck (Nicolas Duvauchelle). The whirlwind courtship leads the couple to become caretakers of a warehouse full of questionable wares for the summer — the problem of no money for an Italian vacation solved. After a violent incident, however, Franck and Jeanne’s relationship implodes. Even though up to that point, Franck’s deadpan delivery, intense stares and questionable background make his motives mysterious at best and threatening at worst, it turns out that he had gotten involved in the shady dealings for her sake.

Rather selflessly, he just wanted to give Jeanne a summer vacation, and after the incident, the burden of consequences falls entirely on him, while Jeanne comes out unscathed. This is what makes her invention of the hate crime that follows next all the more bizarre — she wastes no time in grieving or processing what happened with Franck.

Instead, her outlandish reaction to the death of her relationship and her ruined summer, is to fabricate a story emulating the anti-Semitic attack stories she had seen covered on the news. Her story, however, is full of holes — therein lies the race relations commentary of the movie. The media are quick to jump on it — the president even calls Jeanne to offer condolences because this is such a “hot” issue. The matter is all the more convoluted because Jeanne is not Jewish and claims to be mistaken as such because she has the business card of a Jewish lawyer in her bag.

Her story unravels within a matter of days because it is that tenuous and outlandish. The interesting part, however, is that neither her mother nor any of the other characters in the movie actually buy it from the very start. Jeanne names “dark-skinned” inner city youths as her attackers, making this all the more perverse. By playing the victim, she victimizes a minority group.

Dequenne plays Jeanne’s role with an endearing youthful naiveté and Deneuve’s performance as an impossibly patient, bemused mother is also superb. The cinematography is also excellent — Jeanne’s rollerblading is a nice allegory for her floating through life. Had this been a summer vacation story, it might have been more successful. But by not really engaging the story of Jeanne’s lie, it leaves the viewer wanting.

Review Of An Education:

“An Education” is a coming-of-age story set in 1960s London. The screenplay, written by Nick Hornby of “High Fidelity” and “About A Boy” fame, features his trademark clever dialogue and unconventional characters, aiming to inject levity into what could otherwise be the age-old school versus fun movie dilemma.
The main character, Jenny — played with a disarming charm by Carey Mulligan — is 16-years-old. She is intelligent, attractive and witty — think a ‘60s Rory from “Gilmore Girls.” She plays the cello, loves all things French and aspires to walk the hallowed halls of Oxford. Her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) are not your typical overachieving parents — in fact, Molina’s performance especially shines in the film.
While the entire family is bent on doing everything to get Jenny into her dream school, they are not the career-obsessed tormentors a la “Dead Poets Society.” Their droll humor and cheeky exchanges with their daughter make for some of the most entertaining scenes in the movie.
In one particularly amusing scene, Jenny’s father explains to her that Oxford wants “joiner-inners” and gives a hilarious analysis of one of her after-school activities and what the purpose of a hobby is in terms of college applications.
The banter between Jenny and her parents shows them to be, well — cool, which is yet another novelty in the coming-of-age film genre. It is precisely this coolness that introduces the conflict of why her parents, just like Jenny, fall for the ruses of a charming older man, twice Jenny’s age, David, played by Peter Sarsgaard.
Sarsgaard does an incredible job, portraying his character as a mixture of a disturbing borderline sexual predator and charming but thoroughly confused rake.
“An Education” raises a lot of class issues; David is able to charm Jenny only because he is able to take her on whirlwind trips to Paris, fancy restaurants and chic jazz clubs. Middle class Jenny bemoans that she has never had any fun and writes off her pre-David life as boring.
Yet there are plenty of warning signs that David is a conman, albeit a very charming one. This begs the question of why Jenny chooses to ignore what is right in front of her; after all, she is too clever and wise for such things. It is precisely this plot element that seems to be a stretch, yet our belief in it is pivotal. To loosely dismiss it all as “young love” and the folly of youth is almost too easy. Maybe it is precisely the glamour and wealth that makes Jenny and her parents go along with David’s elaborate web of lies.
One of the more poignant moments in the movie comes when Jenny demands to know why her dad, who is the old, wise and ever protective father, did not foresee the fallout. As she says, “Silly schoolgirls are always getting seduced by glamorous old men,” but that should not have been the case with her parents.
Therein lies one of the greater strengths of this movie — portraying the few options open to women in the 1960s. It seems that Jenny’s life paths appear to be limited to old-maidish schoolmarm or wife of a well-to-do man. In one exchange with her parents, Jenny sarcastically points out that apparently, education is merely an “expensive alternative to a dinner dance” and an end only in its enabling of one to become an educated housewife.
Ultimately, “An Education” asks which is more valuable: the school of life or formal education. The two are not evenly matched, however — David and his coterie are clearly not of ingénue Jenny’s ilk. As he says, “We are not clever like you.” They are, however, able to create their ridiculously fun and adventurous life precisely because of their questionably attained means, thus making the fun versus school dilemma not all that even.
Jenny’s English teacher asks her, “You can do anything, Jenny, you’re clever and pretty. Is your boyfriend interested in the clever Jenny?” The resounding “no” makes the end of the movie fairly predictable. Nevertheless, the film has enough idiosyncratic and enjoyable elements to make it worth seeing if one can suspend disbelief in some of the more far-fetched plot developments.