Review: Mona Lisa Smile (**)

MONA LISA SMILE
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): **


MONA LISA SMILE is a female version of DEAD POETS SOCIETY whipped up into a
light, fluffy and sugary confection for the holidays. Julia Roberts stars
as Katherine Watson, a Berkeley Bohemian who in 1953 has just arrived at,
what we are told is the country's most conservative college, Wellesley, to
be its new art history instructor. An all-girl school with every student as
rich as Croesus, the students are academic overachievers who want nothing
more than a wedding ring. Katherine comes to deride the school as just "a
finishing school disguised as a college."



The film's problems, as well as its few fun moments, can be attributed
directly to the writers, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, who seem
incapable of crafting characters that aren't complete stereotypes. Roberts
is the frightened idealist, who will overcome her fears and forever change
the lives of the girls she teaches. Marcia Gay Harden plays an anal teacher
of "speech, elocution and poise," who is incapable of breaking out of her
self-imposed chains. Kirsten Dunst plays the bitch who is the first to be
married and the first to be disillusioned. Julia Stiles plays the brainiac
who is pre-law but has no intention of being anything but a bride. Maggie
Gyllenhaal is the promiscuous free-spirit who finds her independence through
sex. And Ginnifer Goodwin is the slightly pudgy student who thinks she's a
hopeless wallflower.



The story's arc runs from the beginning of the school year, when all that
the students want is a marriage proposal, to the end, when, thanks to the
enlightenment provided by their art teacher, they realize that there are
more possibilities in life than cooking and sewing. The actors are too
smart to convincingly play dumb, which means that the story is rarely
convincing. Only Goodwin's touching performance as a girl who thinks she's
undesirable has any believability or punch.



The few joys of the preposterously over-the-top story come in the way that
the film captures the sense of time and place, right down to the
paint-by-numbers kits and to the teaching of young ladies in the proper way
to cross and uncross their legs. The dialog can be quite delicious at
times, including my two favorites: "Art isn't art until someone says it is."
and "Forget the A-bomb. Freon is going to change the U. S. of A." We have
our dot-coms. They had Freon.



MONA LISA SMILE runs 1:59. The film is rated PG-13 for "sexuality, nudity
and language" and would be acceptable for kids around 12 and up.



The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, December 19, 2003.
In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.



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