Growing Up at 16 -- Ready or Not

2 years ago

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Woman Up Editor

Thanks for the mini-review of "Precious," Mia. The Lee Daniels film about the neglect and abuse of a 16-year-old girl has not opened yet where I live, but by next weekend, when it does, I hope I'll have developed the emotional fortitude to watch it.

The film's fictional depiction of very real violence and cruelty toward an unloved and unlovely teenage girl in 1987 Harlem, based on the novel "Push," by Sapphire, tracks the title character's struggle to gain courage and self-esteem. Maybe the fine performances, especially the reputed tour de force of comedian Mo'Nique and stunning debut of newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, will help me filter the heartbreaking reality of the many casual victims of abuse who do not survive their own adolescence in one emotional piece.

While I steel myself to watch "Precious," I'll consider that even in a privileged life, the path of each girl to her own adulthood requires the loss of innocence. That lesson is illustrated by the very different kind of 16-year-old girl's trauma drama I saw last evening. "An Education" is based on Lynn Barber's memoir of her teenage self and re-enacted in Nick Hornby's intelligent screenplay.

Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a child at the brink in middle-class London of 1961, is guided by her ambitious father (played pitch perfectly by Alfred Molina) who marshals her school lessons, cello-playing rehearsals, and extramural life toward the pinnacle of academic excellence, Oxford instruction. Though the teenager is a likely candidate for acceptance to "read English" at the prestigious university, her path is disturbingly cut by a charming rogue with no apparent scruples. Telling the teenager and her parents whatever will dazzle them, the much older suitor seems to offer a lifetime of twinkling amusements to tempt Jenny away from the long road to a cultured existence.

The credulous teenager sees an easy option to a woman's independent life of letters that she fears leads to the seeming drudgery of teaching school or working in civil service. The romance, as those with sociopaths always must, fails catastrophically. The real education comes when the teenager, seeing herself as a "ruined woman," tries to put her life back on track.

Filed Under: Woman Up

Tagged: an education, AnEducation, precious

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