I really want to see An Education, the new movie based on the memoir of the same name by Lynn Barber, directed by Lone Scherfig, and adapted for the screen by Nick Horny.

The story seems interesting enough, about a 16 year old girl named Jenny in 1960s England with a normal mum and dad who’s working hard at her studies with plans to go to Oxford. And then she meets an older man, played by Peter Sarsgaard, who sweeps her off her feet with romance and the jet set travels of his swinging friends and leads her slowly down the path to ruin and the eventual growth into a woman. There’s more to that, much more, but I’ll spare you the details unless you’re truly interested.

First thing you should know, impressionable ladies of any age: Stay the fuck away from Peter Sarsgaard. He just looks like he’s out there to scoop up impressionable young girls.

But in all seriousness, the real reason I want to see this movie, besides the fact that it just looks good and has been getting incredibly positive reviews, is it’s lead, Carey Mulligan.

Ah…

I’ve only been lucky enough to catch her in a few things here and there, but she’s always come off as a young actress of grace and intelligence. And there’s an adorableness factor that’s truly undeniable. But all that ties into the fact that in one instant she can seem so young, so painfully, beautifully young, full of innocence and wide eyed wonder of the world, and then she can turn in an instant, those large eyes quivering with sadness, and then turn again, staying in the realm of adulthood, moving from the sadness to the joy of growing up. And she does it all with something that I never honestly thought I’d ever find in a living human being: grace.

I should also add, since I am a nerd, that I originally caught her in an episode of Doctor Who, the classic “Blink,” which I would highly recommend not only as an excellent piece of science fiction storytelling, but because it’s a stand alone episode, featuring solely Carey Mulligan’s one off character, the unstoppably inquisitive Sally Sparrow, girl detective, as she faces off against a mysterious mansion and one of the scariest bit of creatures (it is almost Halloween, after all) you’ll ever see: The Weeping Angels.

To say more would be criminal, but I’d give my highest recommendation to that episode, written by the genius Steven Moffat (set to take over the reins of Doctor Who early next year) and Carey Mulligan’s performance in it especially. She not crafts an energetic and intelligent young character who loves a good mystery, but she manages to create a role you fall in love with instantly. It’s a joke I make quite frequently on this site, but I’d truly give just about anything to see a spin off with her character in it (as opposed to the bisexual Nigel Kneale ripoff that is Torchwood on it’s better days).

Carey Mulligan is only 24 and already has a wide variety of film and television roles under her belt. Other than An Education now, she’ll also appear in the Natalie Portman/Tobey Maguire/Jake Gyllenhaal remake of Brothers, as well as Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2 and Mark Romanek’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

Nick Hornby, who you of course know from his earlier works like High Fidelity and About A Boy, and who adapted the autobiographical memoir by Barber into An Education, also has a new book about called Juliet, Naked. And I hear it’s actually pretty good.

“She’s a suburban girl who’s frightened that she’s going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It’s the story of pretty much every rock ‘n’ roll band,” said Hornby about the character in the book version of An Education. Interesting the way he frames that, but when asked about the actual writing of a teenage girl, as opposed to just a man who’s whole live revolves around music and quim, Hornby said, “I think the moment you’re writing about somebody who’s not exactly you, then the challenge is all equal. I was glad that everyone around me on this movie was a woman so that they could watch me carefully. But I don’t remember anyone saying to me, ‘That isn’t how women think.’”

If not stopped, I could potentially post pictures of Carey Mulligan here forever.