You may have heard the hype, and I’m here to tell you, brother, that it’s true: Carey Mulligan really is giving an astonishing performance in An Education, the exhilarating indie that’s currently rolling out across the country.

But her performance as Jenny, a British teenager who discovers her sexuality and her identity in the early 1960s, wouldn’t be as exciting without Nick Hornby’s script and Lone Scherfig’s direction.

More on that below… and be ready for spoilers.

Here’s why this movie sticks with me: It creates the exact story I want to tell about myself as a high school senior. It lets a smart, witty protagonist experience “adult life” with aplomb, moving gracefully between fashionable parties and moonlit kisses, and when things go awry, it doesn’t punish her for expressing her sexuality or trying to forge her own path. Instead, after her older lover David turns out to be married (!) and involved with illegal real estate deals (!!), Jenny goes back to the suburban life she rejected… the life of college entrance exams and parents who don’t always make sense. But she goes back with newly opened eyes. She enlists a female teacher to help her prepare her Oxford application, and then she gets into Oxford. And when she’s there, she appreciates her own youthfulness and the youthful inexperience of those around her.

In other words, Jenny gets to educate her heart and her mind in equal measure. She gets to savor the thrill of adolescent rebellion and the wonder of a good education, and she doesn’t have to sacrifice one to enjoy the other.

How nice to have it both ways! How nice to be spared a warning that sex will ruin your future or that books will cauterize your genitals!

Granted, characters in the film make both of those arguments, but the film itself doesn’t make them. It lets us see those judgmental claims like Jenny does… as the sentiments of well-meaning people who just haven’t figured things out.

It’s in Jenny’s sharply defined worldview that the writing, directing, and acting come together. Though she certainly gets hurt and confused, Jenny is an astonishingly confident young woman. She may be seventeen and sleeping with a man in his thirties, for instance, but there’s nothing creepy about it. In a scene where Jenny reveals her breasts to David, we don’t actually see her breasts. We see the shot from Jenny’s perspective, looking down at David as she exposes herself for just a moment, then covers up again. The composition of the shot—she’s standing over him, she’s the one whose gaze we follow—tells us that she’s in control.

And then the script lets Jenny get fully clothed and go to sleep with no complaint from David. They don’t even have sex that night. And when they do have sex a few days later, we don’t see it. We just know that Jenny and David mutually decided it was time. And throughout, Carey Mulligan projects a frank curiosity about what’s happening. She isn’t pouty jailbait, and she’s not an innocent lamb being abused… she’s a young woman who is ready to learn about herself.

How nice that these sexual scenes are about Jenny. She is not merely an object of David’s lust. We’re not meant to see her through the older man’s eyes.

And how nice that David is never a mere object either. He’s a complex character, and he’s one of the many people who treat Jenny like a young adult, who listen to her and respect her and don’t cast her aside if she makes a mistake.

That generosity extends beyond the sex scenes, too. Jenny’s teacher and headmistress—who are also written and performed as actual people, not just boarding school stereotypes—engage Jenny in serious debates about her studies, and when she says something impetuous or naive, they don’t berate her for it.

And that’s the story I told myself about my senior year in high school. I wanted to believe that I could walk confidently into adulthood and be respected by adults while I did it. I wanted to believe that I could experience sex and school and my body and my mind. I wanted to believe that the world would treat me kindly as I did.

Lucky me… it worked out that way. My adolescence was full of generosity, of teachers and friends and (sometimes) lovers who either grew with me or encouraged me to grow. I never hooked up with a thirtysomething criminal, and I didn’t have Jenny’s “adult eyes” when I started college, but I certainly learned to appreciate the balance in my life. And seeing a movie that appreciates the same thing just fills me with joy.