Mona Lisa Smile Is a Candid Historical Reflection

In Mona Lisa Smile, professor Katherine Watson (played by Julia Roberts) feels about art and life, exactly how I feel about this film. “You don’t have to like it. But you must consider it.” Take any other approach and movie-goers risk missing a sharp, intriguing story, mislabeled as just another holiday “chick-flick” reserved for couples and reunited sorority sisters.

Free of vanilla-coating, Mona Lisa Smile is a candid historical reflection with an impact and accuracy not seen in a period piece since Glory.

The script by Lawrence Konner (The Sopranos—TV) and Mark Rosenthal (Mercury Rising), is smart and poignant, hiding complex issues in a seductive narrative dashed with philosophy and sexuality. When placed in the hands of experienced director Mark Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral), near legendary leading lady, Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) and a strong female supporting cast of Julia Stiles (Save the Last Dance), Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Secretary) as Watson’s students, this estrogen-infused film (live wallpapers hd for iphone from your favorite films)crackles with something to say.

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Add in an essential and powerful performance from Ginnifer Goodwin (Ed—TV) and Mona Lisa Smile is a moving and entertaining tale of America past.

At its core, the story is a permutation of the old Hollywood premise where the imaginative, colorful teacher challenges their students to believe in themselves and find their own way. Only in this telling, the plot twists defy prediction and the critical digs at society are more sophisticated than in movies past.

As mentioned, Julia Roberts plays Katherine Watson, a progressive UCLA grad transplanted east to teach art history at Wellesley College, an all-girls school reputed to house the brightest x-chromosomes in the country. The story is set in motion when Watson arrives for the 1953–1954 school year, expecting to find a campus unshackled by the repressive mores of mid-century America, but instead encounters nothing more than a glorified finishing school, populated by pretentious, close-minded princesses. Pompous administrators and despotic parents are introduced as guardians of the status quo and the combatants Watson must overcome if she wishes to expose her students to a world beyond muzzled, domestic expectations.

A period piece with the intelligent undertones of this one inevitably runs the risk of alienating its audience with unidentifiable, dated material. However, Mona Lisa Smile avoids such a pitfall and surpasses its predecessors (The Dead Poets Society, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), by delving deeper into society’s margins, tastefully raising provocative questions, and offering many a harbinger of things to come in American society. Homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, birth control, the perils of television, preferential college admissions, defining intelligence, pervasive advertising, and most strikingly the role of the sexes are all broached with an honest eye.

It takes money to recreate a time period with the help of Oscar winners and the film’s effectiveness owes much to the big budget backing of Sony Pictures Entertainment. With large investments to regain, major media house productions like this one often become artistically impotent endeavors by trying way too hard to please everyman-USA. However, not this time. Credit the evident artistic integrity of Newell, Konner, and Rosenthal, for keeping Mona Lisa Smile fresh, with telling scenes usually reserved for the Indie circuit.

Seemingly unconstrained by banal intentions, the on-screen assembly of Stiles, Dunst, Gyllenhaal, and Goodwin deliver, a captivating, and rarely attempted portrayal of the catty life inside an all-girls school. The heated, emotional exchanges between Betty Warren (Dunst) and Giselle Levy (Gyllenhaal), offer pointed drama and suspense on the level with Matt Damon and Brendan Fraser’s characters in School Ties. Goodwin, as Constance Baker, plays the timid compliment to the other girls unabashed confidence and in the process becomes the most moving character on screen. A rather lifeless portrayal of Joan Brandwyn by normally magnificent Julia Stiles is the film’s lone performance sag.

Also, in alignment with the uncompromising writing, acting, and directing of Mona Lisa Smile is a well-researched musical score. Once again defying the mainstream formula, the soundtrack isn’t sprinkled with the surviving 1950s favorites now heard on the FM dial. Instead, it relies on the pure gems that marked the period.