Rating:  -
If nothing else Mona Lisa Smile sends a message to society women of the 1950's to make more of your lives. The story is cetered around Wesleyan, an female college which truly was a breeding ground for preppie upper society ladies to appear well educated and marry into a well to do family. Julia Roberts's Ms Watson character arrives from California and sets this world in for a spin. She tries to teach her students to look at art and life in a more open minded way as well as to make the most of your abilities.
In the course of her one year at Wesleyan, she effects the lives of students and even the faculty around her. Also, she learns about herself in the process. Even if it comes from some romantic heartache.
The one part of the movie which disappoints me is where the the mother of one of the college girls actually sends her daughter back to her philandering husband without any regard to her feelings. Its a bit irrealistic that a mother would be that heartless.
Similar to Dead Poets Society, Mona Lisa Smile stands pretty tall in most regards.
Rating:  -
My daughter, who had seen this film and loved it, suggested that we watch it together. I agreed and was very glad I did so, as I really enjoyed this bittersweet film. It is a well-acted, well-directed effort about a free-thinking art history professor, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), who in the nineteen fifties, lacking Ivy League credentials, manages, through a twist of fate, to get a berth as a professor at traditional and conservative Wellesley College. It is here that she hopes to find herself instructing the leaders of tomorrow.
What she finds, instead, is a group of highly intelligent, young women, who are more interested in marrying the leaders of tomorrow than in being leaders themselves. Ms. Watson succeeds in opening the minds of her students to the possibilities and choices life can offer and learns a little about such possibilities and choices herself. She also finds friendship and romance while at Wellesley College. The film also focuses on four of her students, all of whom are given stellar portrayals by the young actresses playing them.
Elizabeth "Betty" Warren (Kirsten Dunst) is the quintessential fifties girl, obsessed with getting her Mrs. before getting her BA. She later discovers that one should be careful for what one wishes. She is also a nasty piece of work who doesn't care what misery for others her poison pen invectives and barbed comments cause. She eventually gets her comeuppance in a way that she never envisioned. Her best friend, Joan Brandwyn (Julia Styles), is a beautiful, highly intelligent, young woman who harbors a secret wish to become a lawyer. Yet, at the same time, she desperately wants to become a wife and mother. Hers is a decision between choices. She ultimately makes a choice that causes Ms. Watson some consternation but with which she is happy. Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a young Jewish miss in a WASP environment who finds herself having short term affairs with her hunky professor and with an older, married man. Connie Baker (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a pleasingly plump, pretty cellist who finds true love, only to find it derailed by the ever evil Betty.
Marcia Gay Harden is brilliant in the supporting role of Nancy Abbey, Wellesley College's professor of etiquette and deportment, who, one discovers, has not always followed her own staid advice. Noted British actress, Juliet Stevenson, is outstanding in the small role of Amanda Armstrong, the college nurse and closet lesbian, who is still mourning the loss of her companion of many years. Marian Seldes is perfectly cast as President Jocelyn Carr, whose role at the college seems to be that of keeping the well-heeled alumni and trustees of Wellesley College happy with the status quo. Donna Mitchell turns in a stunning performance as Betty's self-absorbed mother, a woman who is a slave to the expected and puts appearances before her daughter's happiness. Julia Roberts is luminous as the role of Katherine Watson, infusing it with an intelligence and natural warmth that radiates off the screen. Though she has a little bit too contemporary an edge, she still manages to carry the day in the role of the forward thinking professor with the Mona Lisa smile.
All in all, this is a wonderful, highly enjoyable film in which the social mores and style of the nineteen fifties are well depicted.
Rating: -
My mom went to an ivy legue college during that time. It helped me understand how different her life was than mine. The way smoking was promoted then as a good thing to college girls. The roles of women in school. The less seriousness with which education was taken with women. The decreased opportunity and the social norms of the time. This really let me know about the time period and I saw so many things my mother had mentioned. I disgussed it with her afterward. She did not see it. It helped me. It was well acted and interesting. Good character development. A definate chick flick. They guys would hate this one most likely. I really liked it.
Rating: -
I happened to see this movie yesterday and I must confess this was one of the best movie. I guess the reason for it could be that I very much identify with the character of this movie. People who believe that they can change the world will love it.Its a story set in 1950s when the women were newly admitted to college. Its about the social conditioning at that era in spite of being brilliant at their studies how they were forfeiting their careers and how one professor with vision make them realize their potential.
Rating:  -
My wife loved this movie but I thought it was only a 5 out of 10 at best. Julia Robert's lips annoy me to no end and her character in this film simply didn't ring true to me nor did any of the other characters, because they all seemed to be so exaggerated. I was in college during this period and while things were a great deal more conservative than they are today I don't recall them as being as conservative and uptight as this film portrays. None of the girls I dated during this period felt that their future was tied to some man. In fact several of the girls (women) that I knew and dated during this period went on to have significant careers (and marriages).
I cannot believe that any mother would expect her daughter to stick by a philandering jerk like this film would have you believe. Julia Robert's character was there to teach art history but seems more focused on getting her feminist agenda across than doing her job. Furthermore her view of art seemed rather narrow much like teaching music appreciation by focusing exclusively on Rock. I thought she should have been fired for failing to teach the subject.
I also couldn't or didn't understand the affair between her and the smarmy philandering teacher who was bedding his students. Even a blind man could have seen from the outset what this man was like and a feminist like Robert's was supposed to have been would not have tolerated him for a minute. In fact, reporting him to the administration would have been more in character.
Overall I thought the film was entertaiing and I watched it to the end. As I said my wife loved this film and thought it portrayed life as she knew it during this period. Not being a woman maybe it did, but for me the entire film was exaggerated and unbelievable. Julia Robert's looks like she has fish lips -- very annoying to me, but that is just personal.
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