2010s: Further success, An Education
In 2009, An Education, Scherfig's most critically lauded film, was released. With a screenplay written by esteemed British fiction author Nick Hornby, the movie was based on journalist Lynn Barber's experiences as a teenager in post-war Britain. The film's story follows 16-year-old Jenny (played by Carey Mulligan) as she is picked up one rainy night by David (played by Peter Sarsgaard), and brought into the bustling and exciting adult London society. Centered on this tender and somewhat morally ambiguous romantic relationship between David and Jenny, the movie was hailed as being subtle and deliberate in its pacing and tone. Many reviewers noted the exceptional performance of Carey Mulligan as the protagonist. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance; the film was nominated for Best Picture and Nick Hornby (for Adapted Screenplay).
On making the film, Scherfig has talked about her focus on the theme of being an American teenager examined throughout the story, saying,
"my guess is about America is that it's this combination of innocence and freedom that attracts you. Here in Denmark, as well, it was more liberated than it is now, and was definitely more innocent and less dangerous. I mean, when I was a teenager, the world was a lot safer than it is now for my daughter as a teenager, which meant that I could have a lot more fun. It wasn't risky the way it is now."
She has also discussed the pleasures of working in a more collaborative spirit for this movie, commenting that the movie was "the same piece that we [were] all working on, and that was really important to me as a director that everyone was making the same film, that everyone contributed to the package and tried to strengthen it and get as many facets as possible but not be over-inventive, [to] just tell the story as well as we possibly could."
Scherfig's next film, titled One Day and released in 2011, follows the lives of two romantically engaged individuals as they intersect one day each year. Based on novel of the same name by David Nicholls and adapted by him as a screenplay, the movie marks a more turning point for Scherfig's career in reaching a larger audience than any of her previous films. The plot and story of the movie has been characterized as somewhat simple and predictable, but critics noted that Scherfig gave the dialogue and tone of the film a distinct freshness. The reputations of leading actors Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess both helped attract a wider audience.
Scherfig had declared her interest in working with Hathaway on this project. She also commented on the difficulties of working with someone else's screenplay, saying in an interview that:
It's so much easier to work with something you've written, because you can cut things or add things on the spot. You can be much more at home and at ease with what you do. You don't feel unfaithful to the writer because there is no writer. Most of the other films I've done I've co-written, and I prefer it. But having said that, when you work with someone else's characters, you get a lot of gifts. You get an entire world, you get to portray people that you couldn't have made up, and entire worlds that are fascinating because they are not yours. It's much harder, I really think it's much harder
Scherfig worked as a consultant writer for the Danish film Alting. She has worked on other projects (such as Red Road and Donkeys) in helping write and develop characters. In 2014 her film The Riot Club, based on the stage play Posh by Laura Wade, was released. The film follows two first-year students amongst the privileged elite of Oxford University, determined to join the infamous Riot Club, where reputations can be made or destroyed over the course of a single evening. Universal Pictures distributed the film in the UK and Ireland.
