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| Mona
Lisa Smile
Directed By: Mike
Newell Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
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| In 1953, a time when women's roles were rigidly defined, novice art history professor Katherine Watson (Roberts) begins teaching at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, which despite its academic reputation is an environment where success is measured by how well the students marry. Encouraging these women to strive for a more enlightened future, Watson challenges the administration and inspires her students to look beyond the image of what is, and consider the possibilities of what could be. [TRAILER] In studying film, there is much discussion of the term "suture," which essentially means a film’s ability to create expectations and then satisfy those expectations. It is not all that different than some people at Christmas time. In talking with someone, you convince them that they want a particular bauble, and then you are the hit of the holiday when you present it Christmas Day. To watch "Mona Lisa Smile" is to witness this process of suturing without an ounce of subtlety or craft. From beginning to end, this film is a formula, and although a couple moments are truly affecting, we must be careful to distinguish those movies which tell a compelling story and ask us to think from those which rely solely on images guaranteed to touch a nerve. I can show you a kid dying and make you cry; a couple kissing and make you yearn; a hilarious evening in a college dorm and make you nostalgic; a wistful glance between man and woman and make you aroused. Those who cannot tell the difference between an automatic response and something more will mistake "Mona Lisa Smile" for a passionate story of feminism and change. Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) is a new teacher at Wellesley College, a renowned institute for women, but also one of the great bastions of conservatism in the early 1950’s. And, as the movie would have us believe, her views on art, marriage and dignity changed the lives of every student she touched. Early on, she hears from her colleagues that the best way to fit in is to not be noticed - to not create any waves that would bring attention her way. One of her friends, the school nurse, is fired for having the audacity of giving birth control to students who ask for it. When Watson, an art history teacher, dares to show students modern works from the likes of Picasso, she is scoffed at by the administration. And so from the very beginning "Mona Lisa Smile" rushes into conflict, not realizing that for any of us to become concerned when bad things happen, we must first care about who it’s happening to. The majority of the movie’s drama concerns marriage. Wellesley, in reality, is a finishing school for women, not where they go to enrich their minds, but where they go to get ready for marriage. Watson refuses to accept this, instead encouraging the intelligent Joan (Julia Stiles) to pursue law school as well as a husband, refusing to let Betty (Kirsten Dunst) off the hook when she starts ditching school to act as a wife and challenging her students to question rather than simply accept. There are some moments when these conflicts hit a nerve. Betty is truly trapped in a hopeless situation - forced to marry because it is what expected of her and required to endure her sham of a marriage because of social stigmas. Joan, as her boyfriend and soon-to-be fiancé puts it, should feel honored that she was even allowed in to law school. After all, she is just a woman. But most of these moments; for that matter, almost all of the movie’s dialogue and interactions, are nothing more than the film’s shallow attempt to suture the audience. The film wants us to see Watson as a fighter, so it creates preposterous situations that she can then endure through. It wants us to see her as a visionary, so it creates one implausible scenario after another where outsiders dismiss the students as girls, and where even the girls dismiss themselves, so that Watson can then pick them up. It wants us to see her femininity, so it creates two love stories on the side. The key here is that this feels contrived. We sense the shallowness of the characters, conflicts and situations, realizing they exist solely as vehicles to build our expectations and then give us exactly what we want. Fulfilling, yes; enlightening, no. There is one moment when "Mona Lisa Smile" could have redeemed itself. Joan, hearing Watson’s rant about marriage, directs the attention back at her, questioning if she wants the students to be their own people, or only Watson’s kinds of people. What a fascinating moment this could have been, questioning the hero rather than accommodating our every assumption. But in the next scene that thought has floated away, consumed by more drama concerning Joan and solved by, you guessed it, Katherine Watson. I guess my expectations were out of line.  Check out Reviews, Commentary, and More at Zertinet.com |
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