Mona Lisa Smile

18 February 2019

Mona Lisa Smile 2003

• Directors: Mike Newell
• Based on the novel: no
• Cast: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ginnifer Goodwin, Dominic West, Juliet Stevenson, Marcia Gay Harden, John Slattery
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Julia Roberts – Closer, August Osage County, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Erin Brockovich, Runaway Bride, Notting Hill, The Conspiracy Theory, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Michael Collins, Mary Reilly, The Pelican Brief, Hook, Sleeping with the Enemy, Pretty Woman, Steel Magnolias
• Kirsten Dunst – Melancholia, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Levity, Spiderman, Virgin Suicides. Little Women
• Julia Stiles – Silver Linings Playbook, The Bourne Identity, O, Hamlet, Ten Things I Hate about You
• Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Dark Knight, Stranger than Fiction, Paris je t’aime, Sherrybaby, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Adaptation, Riding in Cars with Boys, Donny Darko, Waterland
• Ginnifer Goodwin – He’s Just Not That into You, Walk the Line
• Dominic West – Genius, Testament of Youth, Pride, From Time to Time, The Wire, Chicago, 28 Days, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III
• Juliet Stevenson – Breaking and Entering, Infamous, Being Julia, Bend It Like Beckham
• Marcia Gay Harden – The Mist, Into the Wild, The Dead Girl, American Dreamz, Mystic River, Pollack, Meet Joe Black, First Wives Club, Homicide Life on the Streets
• John Slattery – Madmen
• Why? I liked it the first time
• Seen:  Once before. Now 17 February 2019      

       Progressive art history teacher Katherine Watson (Roberts) gets a job at conservative Wellesley College in 1953.

       I can’t help it. I love teacher films. They’re always about dreadful students, despairing but determined teachers who prevail and win them over. I mean, To Sir with Love, you know. All of us teachers secretly think we’re Sir.

       This one isn’t Sir. For one thing the roles are switched from working class kids in London with a classy but streetwise handsome exotic teacher in Sidney Poitier to ultra-snobby aristocratic American girls who are being fiercely groomed for housewifery with a free-thinking, independent strict, demanding, wise, handsome exotic (she’s from California after all) teacher in Julia Roberts.

       I don’t need to tell you the story. Students, teachers, intrigues, loves, conflicts, secrets. With a most appealing cast. Well, not Dominic West (Bill), I never did warm to him. But Roberts and Gyllenhaal are always worth seeing.

       It’s too bad about the romance between Katherine and Bill. And the vignette for the closing credits is painful to look at. I hate the 50’s.

       The film got mixed reviews. It is filled with clichés and perhaps it is not completely historically accurate, but the 50’s were indeed dreadful for many women and this film hits enough of my buttons for

4 * of 5 (Hal didn’t like it so gave it 2 ½ and he probably didn’t want to give it that much)