In the pile of movies handed to me by my happy-to-lend friend came Mona Lisa Smile, which is on my Netflix queue somewhere as well. Truth be told, I thought it looked like a pleasant movie, though the premise sounded awfully familiar. Also, it had a number of famous players, and Mike Newell directed it. I thought it had the makings of being an entertaining movie at the very least and was happy enough to pop it into my DVD player. And I was entertained, but that's mostly because this movie has been recycled from elsewhere, specifically a film that was plenty entertaining the first time it was released.
Julia Roberts plays Katherine Watson, a new "bohemian" art history professor at Wellesley College in 1953. Wellesley is a conservative institution, however, and while it has the reputation for academic excellence, it also upholds and supports the role of woman in the home of that time. Katherine, though, is a free spirit and forward thinker and is at odds with her students and the traditionalist staff, most of whom are only interested in finding a husband and having children. The students include Kirsten Dunst playing Betty, the rich and bitchy alumni foundation president's daughter and editor of the school newspaper who stops at nothing to oust dangerous Katherine's ideals; Julia Stiles playing Joan, who has potential for law school but desires marriage with her boyfriend Tommy (Topher Grace); and Maggie Gyllenhaal playing Giselle, who is the most taken with Katherine's independent spirit, as she has a propensity for sleeping with the Italian professor Bill (Dominic West) and any other older man she can get a hold of. Katherine chooses to fight to open and expand the intellectual growth of her students' minds at great personal and professional cost and finds herself amid competing love interests to boot.
Mona Lisa Smile was too much like Dead Poets' Society to be an effective film for me. It's the same basic premise. Dead Poets' Society: conservative all-male prep school shaken up by outspoken, free-thinking Robin Williams, "o captain my captain," who chooses to expand the minds of his young students through poetry, despite the personal consequences of his actions. Mona Lisa Smile: conservative college, all women, Julia Roberts, art and art history.
The startling similarities to Dead Poets' Society notwithstanding, this movie suffered from poor writing. The dialogue was kind of stunted; most of the students were given cheesy lines that, despite the fact that the film was set in the fifties, just felt out of place. Kirsten Dunst's dialogue was the worst, and I kept feeling that she was miscast as the proper Betty, hellbent on disingenously pleasing her mother and maintaining her home while her new husband philandered.
Plus, the movie presented a confusing message of girl power or even feminism. Katherine championed a woman's right to choose career or education over taking a husband and living and working at home but seemed reluctant to relinquish that choice, even when the choice was for the latter. In fact, the story presented the idea that Katherine's view was the only correct course of action rather than sufficiently allowing for the possibility that all choices can be right as long as they are actively made by the person making them. One scene with Julia Stiles' Joan presented the possibility, but Katherine never seems to accept that free thinking and free spirit can lead to many different outcomes, not just the ability to appreciate fine art and the development of a committment phobia. While I personally would never actively choose hearth and home over career without trying my hand at career first, it's the act of choosing, not the choice itself, that should be celebrated by a truly free spirit.
Also, I am not sure I understood why such a movie was made in 2003. Were the filmmakers trying to hold present day up to the past and make comparisons? Show us how far women have come? Present an interesting historical perspective? Make women feel good about themselves, or bad, depending on which character they most resemble?
Still, I was engaged. The most interesting and relatable character was Connie, and the actress playing her gave the best performance in the whole movie, as the resident "Ugly Betty" learning to love herself. Also, Marcia Gay Harden played Katherine's landlord/roommate, a lonely spinster and the "speech, elocution, and poise" professor, too afraid to take that open-minded path but quietly supportive of Katherine, so long as it did not conflict with her television. Also, the ending shot/scene was lovely and the most poignant moment in the whole movie, though it ploddingly took some time to get there. There were no catchphrases like "O captain my captain," but if there had been, that would have been the stand-on-the-desk moment.
All in all, this film was pleasant like afternoon tea but recycled and boring-tasting, like Lipton. I rate this movie a 6 for being cute but mediocre. Also, in terms of the test, I don't see it passing. I already own Dead Poets' Society, and the two movies were too much alike for me to care more about this one.
As a footnote, I applaud Hollywood for wanting to create a palatable statement of girl power that casts all women, but this is not the first time that a plot has been retooled and a cast of characters changed from men to women (or boys to girls). I can think of a number of examples. I just wish that there could be an original film that, instead of written for males, could be written for and cast with women. Let the boys copy the girls for a change. Then, we might have something truly new and interesting for all to appreciate on many cultural levels.