Education

An Education, about a British girl who is preparing to apply to Oxford in 1961,  and the not-entirely-trustworthy young man she gets involved with, is a fine film, with a well-done story and fine production values. The events described seemed to fit well with the time it was set - 16 years after the war, the Beatles just around the corner - and the characters belong in that time, as well.

(Although the father's character didn't seem like someone who had been involved in the War. Which presumably he was, being of such an age as to have a teenage daughter in 1961. Maybe he was a factory worker or management or in some other role on the home front.)

One of the nicer things about it is how it points out the choices a young woman of that time had, whether or not she decided to go to university. (Headmistress: "There's always the civil service.") They are explained by the characters without sounding clairvoyant. Too often, period pieces make a point of looking forward to the era of their production, and how everyone will know better someday - whether it's about the role of women or the wrongness of slavery or the morality of a class system. The thoughts leading to these brilliant insights are rarely explained, instead being sly winks to the audience who, presumably, already understand and agree. Here, the possible points of view sound like what a teenage girl and a young teacher and a less-young headmistress would really think of at that actual time.