Posted: 10/02/2002

Mona Lisa Smile

(2002)

by Laura Abraham

Totally predictable fare beneath its players.

When I was asked to review Mona Lisa Smile, I honestly had no idea what it was or who was in it. I mentioned having to see it to a friend, and he seemed genuinely pleased, so I assumed it might have some merit.

Imagine my shock when I waited the entire film for some drama, intensity or conflict to appear and there was none. An entire 117 minutes of pure fluff about girls in an uptight school in the 1950’s! I thought I would die before it ended; it was THAT predictable and boring!

Mona Lisa Smile attempts to show us the feminist struggle in the 1950’s at certain more conservative colleges. I was excited by the premise yet confused by the application. Are we supposed to be thankful at the progress we, as women, have gained or be fighting for more? I didn’t know if we were patting ourselves on the back or pushing ourselves onward. In fact, I don’t think anyone involved in the film knew either. Of course, this may not have been the main idea anyway; it may have been enough to showcase the ultimate American princess, Ms. Julia Roberts. Every character seemed to just float around her while she flashed her signature smile, teared up at appropriate moments and seemed to, well…recreate every character she had already beaten to death. Sigh.

Berkeley educated Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) dreams of making a difference in the world. She naively agrees to a position at the uber-conservative Wellesley College in anticipation of teaching future feminist leaders. What she stumbles upon seems to be nothing more than a finishing school full of bright women waiting to get married. The fact this shocks and surprises her shocked and surprised me. I knew this would be the case seemingly before she did. I mean, did she really apply for, accept, and move for a job across the country without understanding the student body or the world around her? We are expected to believe this?

Her main students are four girls with various stereotypical lives/problems: Betty (Kirsten Dunst) is a super bitch with little more than the ability to crush others’ self esteem throughout the entire film. Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is the girl who sleeps with married men and professors in an attempt to capture the warmth her broken home never managed. Being the 1950’s she is also subject to anti-Semitic rhetoric. Shocking? Not! Joan (Julia Stiles) is a bright student who has a secret ambition to attend law school and while she eventually is pushed into applying, ultimately decides to marry. Connie (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a loser who can’t get a date and obsesses about her looks. As usual with Hollywood, she is supposed to be fat and ugly but of course, is lovely, warm and interesting.

In the beginning the girls do not think much of the bohemian teacher without the pedigree. They teach her what Wellesley girls are made of very early on when they know every slide she shows them in the first class. She retaliates to their pretentiousness with more daring art, more daring classes and more daring discussions apparently to lead them towards a greater understanding of her and ultimately themselves. Of course, it does none of this and the “snapshots” of her progressiveness are not convincing or leading in anyway. All it does is show us how little range Julia Roberts has by the inevitable comparison of her acting to the wonderful ensemble cast she is working with.

Roberts was completely miscast as a feminist teacher because she does not have nearly enough balls to carry what could have been a strong historical/sociological look at the lives of women in the 1950’s. By using her, director Mike Newell sealed the fate of the movie as a sugar coated examination of a serious period in the development of woman and marriage. The opportunity to say something was certainly here with this script; however, by using “star power” only to the exclusion of drama and conflict, Newell ended up with little more than a girls version of Dead Poet’s Society. And not as good, you may be sure.

I really liked the supporting cast, however. Dunst overacted at times but the other three were so fantastic I waited for them to take the screen. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to make this film palatable.

The real problem with it is that it spends its 117 minutes telling the audience that Katherine is “progressive” and “bohemian” yet they never show us what they mean by that. It’s as if the director either didn’t understand the terms or was too afraid to break out of his own stereotypical ideas of film to get to any substance. What happens is that the audience is left with a near empty palette, when I could feel the director really wanted to break out and show us something. I am still wondering who stopped him. Julie Roberts? Himself? Or the Studio? Whoever it was, they deserve to be punished because this could have been a very interesting exploration, instead leaving me with a sugar coated film on my already insulin-resistant American brain.

Laura Abraham is a freelance living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is about 20 minutes outside Detroit.

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