Mona Lisa Smile Review

The latest film to star Julia Roberts is Mona Lisa Smile, the story of Katherine Watson, an art history teacher at the prestigious American women's college Wellesley in the early 1950's. Watson arrives from UCLA as a new teacher at the school with, it's reported, more brains than pedigree. The young women at Wellesley are among the nation's brightest, but Katherine finds she's not teaching the future leaders of the nation, she's teaching women destined to be their wives. In challenging traditional values she's confronted by Betty, Kirsten Dunst, daughter of the President of the Alumni Association and editor of the school's newspaper and tries to encourage Joan, Julia Stiles, to aim for law school. Directed by Mike Newell of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco fame, the film strikes a chord for all of us women who came after, reminding us of the women who inspired us and of the feminist movement that followed. Julia Roberts is perhaps miscast as a woman who exposes her students to Soutine and Pollock but she's surrounded by really fine young actors in Dunst and Stiles, as well as Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ginnifer Goodwin and more seasoned ones in Juliet Stevenson and Marcia Gay Harden. Dominic West plays Katherine's romantic interest. It's a fascinating film in many ways and gratefully one that doesn't compromise its premise.