First Hit: At times the acting was good but not by the main characters and the story was not very believable.
Carey Mulligan was 23 when she made this film. Her character, Jenny, is 16 and this is immediately noticeable especially when she is in scenes around other real 16 and 17 year old people. These scenes came early in the film and therefore the pallor of this knowledge diminished the intent and believability of the story.
The film was shot in England and the 1960s. Her father Jack (played by Ralph Molina) is a very conservative man who has plans for his daughter. And as much as he wants to control her, his focus is to have her go to Oxford so that she can have freedom to live a more full life than he is living.
Her mother Marjorie (played by Cara Seymour) is a dutiful, stay at home wife who follows in her husband’s footsteps. One day Jenny, while it is raining buckets, is picked up and given a ride home by David (played by Peter Sarsgaard).
David is a lot older than Jenny but is charmed by her beauty and apparent sophistication and wants to date her. He convinces her parents that going to see a Ravel string concert and dinner afterward is a safe venture with him.
Their relationship grows and becomes cemented when she accepts that David and his counterpart Danny (played by Dominic Cooper) are thieves and make their living through dubious ways. But Jenny is in love and when David asks for her hand in marriage she accepts but then learns he’s not really available.
Mulligan was obviously too old for the part, although during the first nightclub scene, she held both the amazement as a young person out of her element and creating a nervous sophistication which is one reason why David likes her. The best acting was by Molina as her father. Lone Scherfig was the director and don’t think he created an interesting enough story.
Overall: This was a mediocre film, using an old story line, and added nothing to make it very engaging or interesting.