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"An Education" is a movie about the grand old English tradition of restraint. An older man must restrain himself from bedding a teenage girl half his age. The girl's father must restrain himself from becoming overprotective. And Danish director Lone Scherfig — piloting her first English-language feature — must restrain from slopping together a heavy-handed message film. All parties succeed in spades.

The movie is based on journalist Lynn Barber's memoir of the same name. Jenny (Carey Mulligan, "Pride and Prejudice") is about to finish high school in the early 1960s with eyes on Oxford. Then, one rainy afternoon, the older man, David (Peter Sarsgaard, "Garden State"), gives her a ride home. The encounter ignites a courtship that straddles the line between creepy and sweet, but never commits to either tone.

David buys Jenny pretty clothes and whisks her away to fancy clubs and concerts. Then the skeletons start falling out of the closet. David's income is a result of less than honest activity, and a far darker secret casts a shadow over their relationship. Jenny's mother Marjorie (Cara Seymour, "Hotel Rwanda") and father Jack (Alfred Molina, "Spiderman 2") are drawn in by David's charm and give him their full support.

It's easy to question the film's credibility. We live in the age of memoirs that require quotation marks to frame the phrase. But "An Education" not only takes place in England, but also in the pre-Roman Polanski era of social experimentation. David comes off more as an old-fashioned suitor than a predator. Jack pushes his daughter to get into Oxford, but getting married is also an option — just as long as she finds a comfortable life for herself.

Given the scandalous subject matter, it's surprising that the movie follows chaste PG-13 guidelines. There are no bare body parts or sex scenes. This decision cleverly reflects Jenny's naïveté. Nick Hornby's script dodges perversion and focuses on what the story is really about: a schoolgirl's crash course on womanhood. It may be a bit icky to call the movie a romance, but it comes close to earning that label. Sarsgaard and Mulligan pull you in with their effortless onscreen chemistry, which makes their moments of intimacy that much more startling.

Brits are known for portraying Americans, but recently, the roles have started to switch. Paul Schneider did a fine job in "Bright Star," and Sarsgaard pulls off the trick even more convincingly. The real challenge isn't mastering the accent; it is creating a character that views a 16-year-old as an object of true affection, not lust. Mulligan, who plays said object, is a breath of fresh air. She is everything the character should be: pretty but not sultry, innocent but worldly, guarded but vulnerable. The press is already chatting up the two leads in the Oscar race.

The movie wouldn't be much without Molina and Seymour. Molina, a leader in the Brit/American acting industry, is especially impressive in his native London cadence. He bumbles in that sitcom dad sort of way, forever grunting with his foot near his mouth. And like Archie Bunker or Cliff Huxtable, he is ignorant of his daughter's exploits. It is clear that Jack smells a rat, but he's not sure what that rat is. He believes David's tall tales of his Oxford days and a mysterious aunt because it makes his daughter's maturity easier to swallow.

Like other good period pieces, "An Education" does not marinate in the fads and fashions of the moment. It's not a '60s film; instead, it just takes place in the '60s. In Jenny's post-David transformation, she looks like Audrey Hepburn. We see her twisting away on the dance floor, looking 30 but acting 14. Scherfig understands that this moment symbolizes Jenny's tricky maneuver of keeping one high-heeled shoe planted in each world. The director refuses to slap the audience in the face with this suggestion. Remember, this film is an exercise in restraint.

Avoiding the obvious is an easy way to draw positive attention to a film. "An Education" does more than that. It surprises in all the best ways. The conclusion is predictable, but each individual scene twists in strange and genuine directions, ending right when it should. Jenny's education, though, continues long after the screen goes black.

An Education

Rated PG-13. 95 minutes.

Drama.

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Olivia Williams, Cara Seymour, Emma Thompson.

Director: Lone Scherfig.