Mona Lisa Smile Details

2003

Rated:
60
from 28,914 members

Starring	Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director	Mike Newell
Genres	Drama, Gay/Lesbian

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Mona Lisa Smile

Mike Newell's MONA LISA SMILE is a pretty period film that combines a quaint pedagogical tale with a feminist dissection of traditional female roles in 1950s society. Julia Roberts leads an impressive cast of top young actresses including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst, and Julia Stiles. Roberts is Katherine Watson, a revolutionary art history teacher at Wellesley College in 1953. Though she has true admiration for her intelligent all-female students, she is perturbed that their interest in finding husbands takes precedence over their studies. Determined to instruct them in feminist values and teach them to be independent--defying the college's emphasis on breeding good wives, mothers, and homemakers--Watson is deemed subversive by the administration. Even Watson's identity--from California, over 30 years old, and unmarried--is problematic. And when she turns her class onto modern art rather than teaching the recommended classical curriculum, Watson is severely chastised by the staunchly conservative students and faculty.
Beautiful photography of the picture-perfect Wellesley campus combined with a perpetual parade of lovely period costumes makes MONA LISA SMILE a visual delight. Strong performances by each of the actresses, including Dunst uncharacteristically cast as a prim and proper prude, and Marcia Gay Harden as a boring tv-addicted spinster, only add to the splendour of this enjoyable film.

Starring	Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dominic West, Juliet Stevenson, Marcia Gay Harden
Director	Mike Newell
Studio	COLUMBIA TRI-STAR HOME VIDEO
Run time	DVD: 1 hr 54 mins Blu-ray: 1 hr 59 mins
Certificate
Genres	Drama, Gay/Lesbian
Language	English
Dubbed	Hungarian
Hearing-impaired	English
Subtitles	Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Dutch, English, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Romanian, Serbian, Slovene
Released	DVD: 09 Jul 2004 Blu-ray: 08 Sep 2008 Production year: 2003
Format	DVD

Critics' reviews (4) of Mona Lisa Smile
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1950s feminism gets a soft-focus sheen in this sentimental drama from Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell. Ostensibly a female Dead Poets Society, starring Julia Roberts in the unconventional teacher role, it's an emotionally manipulative chick flick with a quasi-intellectual veneer. Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and a vampy Maggie Gyllenhaal are among the students at a New England girls' college in 1953 whose lives are changed irrevocably by the arrival of unmarried art history lecturer Roberts and her scandalous free-spirited ways. Though the characters are all recognisable stereotypes, they're solidly performed, while Roberts makes a sympathetic lead, despite her often anachronistic behaviour and appearance. Newell ably captures the tensions caused when tradition and progression clash, but his simplistic view of the past is governed too much by the present to give the film any real authenticity. The end result is an earnest and glossy melodrama that presses all the right buttons yet never quite convinces.
- Radio Times
- Posted 29 Jan 2006
In this girls' own Dead Poets Society, maverick art history prof Katherine Watson (Roberts) strains to show... read more on Time Out
- Time Out
- Posted 04 Nov 2008
Most helpful member's review of Mona Lisa Smile
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35 out of 54 people found this review helpful

Fifties era relationship angst and Women's lib, Julia Roberts style. And all the horrors that implies.

50's America, a country in dire need of a missile crisis to shake thing up a bit. Into an cloyingly twee and pompous Wellesley College steps progressive Arts teacher Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) who immediately sets about trying to liberate her female students with notions of independence and various other well-meaning slogans with little regard as to whether her choir wants to be preached to or not. This social commentary quickly fades away from the canvas leaving a rather lacklustre relationship drama that's spread over too many characters none of which are painted in more than the shallowest of brushstrokes. Floundering around making the same points multiple times over it's needlessly lengthy two hours, this would be a reasonably enjoyable film thanks to solid support from Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ginnifer Goodwin were it about a half hour slimmer. As it stands the film serves little purpose, unless you want to see Kirsten Dunst play the least sympathetic and most irritating portrayal of a supposedly realistic character seen this year. Julia Roberts pouts her way through her usual routine, so if you're part of the increasingly slim band of people not sick of her then you'll no doubt love this, otherwise steer clear.
- - theOneliner.com from Truth Or Consequences, Scotland
  - Posted 17 Mar 2004 19:52
Most recent members' review of Mona Lisa Smile
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful

wishy washy

The subject of this film gave way to strong drama, but to me was a bit of a let down. The story merely touched the surface of the issues facing 1950's women rather than draw down to the heart of the problems the women faced.

Julia Roberts gives a good performance as a teacher not following the usual methods of the prestigious womens college and trying to encourage her students to follow their dreams and aspirations.
- - A customer from Newcastle upon Tyne
  - Posted 02 Mar 2005 12:58
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