EIFF 2026: The Education of Jane Cumming
So many elements of The Education of Jane Cumming are great – the cast, music, period detail, writing – but it rushes its conclusion, delivering much of the story's dramatic details as text title cards during the credits
The parts of Sophie Heldman’s historical drama are excellent: a strong cast, a sweeping score just the right side of sentimental, meticulous historical detail and costuming, and a script (by Heldman and Flora Nicholson) that develops character through quotidian scenarios rather than exposition. In 1810 Edinburgh, Jane Pirie (Nicholson) and Marianne Woods (Claire Dunne) run a girls’ boarding school, offering not only education for their charges but an independent life for themselves. When the wealthy Lady Cumming Gordon (Fiona Shaw) enrols three granddaughters, it is a huge windfall for the school. Among the daughters is Jane Cumming, of ‘illegitimate’ Indian descent. Despite the teacher’s best intentions, integrating the children into a quasi-family at the school cannot overcome young Jane’s outsider status, and soon pressures boil into disastrous accusations.
Unfortunately, the sum does not quite add up. The story ends before the courtroom drama, and its outcome – life-changing for all involved, with implications on class, race and gender that go underexplored in the film – flashes up at end as text rather than as dramatic depiction. Considering the true story inspired Lillian Hellman’s classic play The Children’s Hour, twice adapted for cinema, Heldman’s may have decided to focus on the earlier events rather than their climax, but the effect is underwhelming.
Before this somewhat strange denouement, Jane Cumming’s outsider status is deftly captured – even reading popular romance novels of the time, and pronouncing Goethe the German way, become battlegrounds. History also leaves Pirie and Woods’ relationship unknown; here, it is defined, and beautifully performed.
The Education of Jane Cumming has its UK premiere at EIFF on 17 Aug, with additional screenings 18&19 Aug