Movie Review: Mona Lisa Smile
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What Parents Should Know
The movie has very explicit sexual references for a PG-13
movie, including promiscuous characters, adultery, and
discussion of birth control (which was illegal in the era
portrayed in the movie). Characters drink, some get tipsy, and
some abuse alcohol. Just about everyone smokes. Characters use
strong language including an ugly anti-Semitic epithet.
Strengths of the movie include its efforts to address the
issues that would be raised by the feminists of the 1960's and
its positive portrayal of a gay character who is accepted
without prejudice (though dismissed from her position for other
reasons).
Families who see this movie could talk about why each of the characters makes the choices that she does.
Common Sense Media Review
In MONA LISA SMILE, a vibrant and independent-minded teacher
shows her students a paint-by-numbers kit for a Van Gogh
picture to show them the difference between art that is
insightful and meaningful and mindless repetition of pretty
images. The problem is that the movie has a paint-by-numbers
script and little more to offer than pretty images. The result
is glossy entertainment value but a long way from art.
Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) is an art history teacher who comes to Wellesley, "the most conservative college in the nation" in the very conservative 1950's. Just to make sure we don't miss the point, we are told right from the beginning that Katherine "made up in brains what she lacked in pedigree" and that she did not want to fit in; she wanted to make a difference.
At first, Katherine is intimidated by the students. They have an easy mastery of the reading material and a "claws underneath their white gloves" ruthlessness in preserving the status quo, which means their status at the top of the social heap.
Betty (Kirsten Dunst) is the most ruthless and acts as the leader of the girls. It may be her uncertainty as she approaches her wedding and what she says is everything she ever wanted that makes her so resistant to any attempt to think independently. Katherine's other students include brainy Joan (Julia Stiles), plain and insecure Connie (Ginnifer Goodwin), and reckless Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal). In between their lessons on poise and how to entertain their future husbands' bosses, Katherine tries to teach them to question the conventional assumptions about art and about their dreams about the lives they want to lead. This is all a bit too subversive for the authorities, leading to the inevitable "I've been getting some calls about your teaching methods. They're a little unorthodox for Wellesley" conversation. Katherine must examine her own dreams in order to teach her students the lesson she wants them to learn.
