TIFF: An Education

TIFF kicked off today and I really hope my first film is indicative of the quality of films I've got on the slate for the next 9 days.

An Education takes place in the early 1960's and stars newcomer Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a smart, pretty, curious girl who's a straight A student with parents pressuring her to gain acceptance to Oxford. But she strays from that path when she meets a much older man (Peter Sarsgaard) who tempts her with a life of fancy clothes, night life and even manages to somehow charm her parents into letting her spend a weekend in Paris.

The movie is based on a memoir by Lynn Barber and was adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby and boasts great performances all around. Mulligan is amazing in this film, and definitely worthy of the quiet Oscar buzz she's garnering. Alfred Molina's turn as her father is funny and charming. Rosamund Pike and Dominic Cooper are entertaining as the couple who, along with Sarsgaard, lure Jenny to the world of adventure. And Olivia Williams and Emma Thompson as her teacher and headmaster respectively are pitch perfect. Incidentally, watching a Sarsgaard love scene while watching the man himself react to the scene (he was sitting in the row ahead of my directly in my peripheral vision) is quite entertaining.

The post film Q&A wasn't the best I've seen at the festival, but I'm going to put that to the quality of the questions from the crowd (not that I had a better one to offer) as opposed to the actors as they were all quite charming.

After the film we played paparazzi at the exit door while the TIFF volunteers did their 'lock and load' for the stars' exits.

Here's Carey stopping to sign a few autographs as she was rushed through

Peter ran the gauntlet pretty quickly as well.

Alfred Molina and Dominic Cooper spent a little more time with the crowd

And Cooper's girlfriend Amanda Seyfried, who also has a film premiering at the same venue tonight at midnight (Jennifer's Body) came out to support him.

The poor girl may have been the most mobbed one there at her exit. And she somehow managed to miss the car and spent a few minutes in the middle of the street getting inundated for autographs and pictures before they swung back around to get her. Also incidentally, she and Cooper seem like a very sweet couple. They were sitting right in front of us for the film and at one point he removed his jacket and threw it around her shoulders as she was clearly getting a bit of a chill in the theatre. All together now....aaaawww :-).