Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

Very disappointing...

Sick Product of a Sick System

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Great cast of actors who are called on to make any number of unbelievable lines and actions believable. You so want this to work with the production values and the cast but the script is just impossible. Yes, of course the intelligent art professor is going to have an affair with the ladies man Italian professor who is notorious for sleeping with students, including one in her own class. High-minded student mouths off at her professor and the professor takes it as a matter of course with no repercussions. Lover of professor from California drops in and assumes they are engaged even though she says she's not sure. Professor is invited to an inner-sanctum sorority event and she not only goes but also proceeds to reveal the details of her private life to the girls. Mouthy student writes searing editorial attacking the professor and when professor delivers heartfelt feminist lecture, the students suddenly gets sad and contrite.and they are best friends forever. And what is Marcia Gay Harden doing playing a one level stereotypical pathetic-ditzy-spinster teacher? What a waste.

A new teacher who comes in and changes the students' outlooks on life is a common theme in movies. "Conrack", "Stand and Deliver" and Mr. Holland's Opus" are examples. "Mona Lisa Smile" continues this motif. Julia Roberts plays a free-spirited bohemian who takes a job as an art history professor at a conservative college in the early 1950s and is displeased with the expectation that the girls will receive their degrees only to become homemakers.It's not any sort of great movie. The focus on the era's gender roles is developed enough, but it doesn't leave any room for subtlety. This is one movie that's all about being direct with its message (not just the gender roles, but the old-money WASPs' attitude towards minorities). I guess that it's worth seeing to understand the mindset of the 1950s and the falsity of the seemingly perfect lives that women were supposed to have after getting married.OK, not great. Maybe worth seeing once. I wonder how many people realized the irony of showing a Jackson Pollock painting...while co-star Marcia Gay Harden played Lee Krasner (Jackson Pollock's wife).

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)I had no idea the theme of this movie but I teach art history and the main opening scene is a true nightmare for an art history teacher--the precocious students knew everything before the teacher said anything, and then they sweetly got up and went to study hall because, of course, they might actually learn something there.This is 1953 at a rich private and elite college for girls (a real one--it's called Wellesley). The writing is a little strained and forcing some of the sexist themes of the 1950s on the audience. So even the stellar cast--Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal--can't give this the sincerity it needs. But the period looks terrific, the music and the dresses are fine, so the whole atmosphere frankly becomes the compelling center of the movie.Not that the plot isn't worthwhile. Roberts is a "progressive" art teacher who for some reason has been hired at this ultra-conservative place. She automatically is lost at sea, but gradually wins over her students with such daring subjects as Van Gogh, who is presented as radical somehow, though conservative enough to become paint by numbers, too. The movie is filled with these conflicts of what we think of as normal modern art (an overdone scene with Jackson Pollack is one example) and with the proper world these women are really supposed to inhabit.And it's true, lots of women were encouraged to be housewives even at good colleges. They went to get their degree, but also their Mrs., as they used to say. And then with the best credentials in the world they would become housewives. Happily. Mostly.There is a rivalry right away between Roberts and a goody-goody Dunst, who is pretty good at being an evil brat, and a sensuous modern student played by Gyllenhaal, who wants the same man Roberts seems to want. Seems to. The romances are not very vivid, the housewifery is canned and uncomplicated (almost drawn from the magazine ads that they keep showing in lectures on a big screen), and the characters themselves are simplified to the point of simplicity. Even Roberts, who is supposed to be discovering her mixed up feelings about art and life on the east coast, is thinly drawn and barely fleshed out.Of course, movies succeed on some level with stereotypes and this one does, too, so by the end we love all the feel good happiness even as we know it's ludicrous and manipulative. Such are the movies. This could have been a better movie with the same basic story but lots better writing and directing. The ambition was kept in check, and so the movie does the minimum here, and not always so badly if the minimum will do.On a final note, there are a number of women behind the scenes here (though not the director or writers, sadly): music, art direction, set decoration, and casting. And of course nearly all of the cast.

* THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS* Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) comes to the conservative Wellesley School in 1953 to teach art, and to teach its students that they can handle both career and marriage, and not to give up on a career, even as society and the school itself tell them otherwise. The students: Betty (Dunst)is the rich snob who continuously insults Katherine for her liberal views on life and art, bashes people she dislikes in the school newsletter, and even schemes against her friends. Joan (Stiles) wants to be a lawyer. Katherine helps her secure an admission to Yale. Giselle (Gyllenhaal) is shown as being promiscuous. She sleeps with the professor of Italian, Bill Dunbar, but when he ends it, ends up bedding an older, married man. She doesn't have an aim in life regarding anything. Early on, she is shown kissing even the girls in intimate places on the body in a couple of scenes (oddly, they don't mind). Made me wonder if she is bisexual, but that angle is not explored, so why hint at it? Don't get me wrong - a girl can sexually explore her boundaries, but lurking around a professor's house to sleep with him and chasing married men is downright disgusting. Giselle is best described as a nymphomaniac. Connie (Goodwin) is the simple girl who dreams of finding her prince charming, which she does eventually. No career plans. Bill Dunbar (West) is the professor infamous for sleeping with his students. He ends up dating Katherine. Why the girls take up art is unclear as none wants to pursue it further. They never study or research art. There are a few art class scenes, but the idea of using art as a tool on which to build the premise of the movie is not convincing. The portrayal of Wellesley School is insulting to the school itself. Every effort is made to drill into the girls' heads that their purpose in life is to be good wives and mothers and nothing more. The school does not permit Katherine to date Dunbar. (It is one of the conditions the school sets when her teaching contract is renewed.) This is outrageous bordering on hilarious, since the school is okay with Dunbar nailing students. Not to mention, for such a conservative school in the 1950s, there is no objection to the previously-existing lesbian relationship of the school nurse and biology teacher. (The relationship ended because the teacher died, not because the school banned it. Later, the nurse is fired for distributing contraception.) Thereby, this is what the school rules dictate: A member of the staff can have sexual relationships with students. A member of the staff may engage in homo-, but not hetero- sexual, relations with another member of the staff. (I am surprised that no reviewer has mentioned these two points.) Finally, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts). When her decent boyfriend of some months travels thousands of miles to propose to her, she refuses saying it is too sudden. Next thing we know, she is in Dunbar's bed despite knowing of his ways and makes him promise to stop. Yeah, you ditch your nice boyfriend for no good reason and expect a womaniser not to cheat on you. Smart. Later, she breaks up with Dunbar over a trivial lie he told her. Why on earth she even falls for Dunbar in the first place is a million dollar question. What happens next? Betty gets married, husband cheats on her, she comes to her senses, apologises to Katherine, gets a divorce and after graduation, relocates with Giselle to Greenwich Village to pursue law. Giselle probably moves to Greenwich Village to find more men to seduce. Joan chooses family over career and gets married. Connie's story is not shown further. After Katherine's contract is renewed for another year, I thought the movie might redeem itself by showing that Katherine continues to teach and marries Dunbar, thus showing that a woman can handle both career and marriage. Instead, she runs away to Europe. Hypocrite lead character. The girls follow her on bikes and wave teary farewells to her. God knows why. Did we learn anything? No. Did Katherine accomplish anything? No. Julia Roberts is a good actor, but this was a bad movie to produce and star in. Gyllenhaal and Goodwin are good. The single star is for the 'Istanbul-Constantinople' track which was fun.The inconsistencies throughout the movie make it seem like a house of cards being built on a very shaky table. Avoid.