Katherine Ann Watson has left California to teach art history in the prestigious Wellesley College, an educational institution for some of the East Coasts richest and most talented young women. However, her bohemian views do not go down well with all the tutors and students at a school, which still teaches deportment and seems stuck with a pre-war mentality, which dictates that, a woman’s role in life is to make her man happy...

Set in 1953, Mona Lisa Smile (2003 1 hr 59 min 20 sec) was directed by Mike Newell, whose next film would be Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Although the film has some nice touches, its contents have already been explored in films such as Dead Poet’s Society (1989) or The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Newell does a good job with this period piece and it cannot be denied that the film has a cracking cast, but in the end it is the script which lets the movie down.

Presented with the list of clichéd character types, you could almost make up the script yourself. So, we have Julia Roberts playing Katherine, a progressive feminist who finds herself in a college where women are expected to get married rather than have careers. So cue Kirsten Dunst as Betty, the student who tows the traditional line and quickly becomes Katherine’s nemesis. So if we have a traditionalist, where is the rebel? Cue Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays the sexually wayward, or liberated depending on your point of view, Giselle, who is having sex with the rakish Italian professor Dunbar played by Dominic West.

Okay, so we have our hero, her nemesis and the tart with a heart. Now what we are really missing is a student with a problem, preferably one that Katherine can help with... So, ladies and gentleman, I give you Julia Stiles playing Joan, the girl who really does want to get married and whose decision challenges Katherine’s preconceptions of the woman’s role, which covers the deep stuff which we can all rub chins at, nod and look smug. So with most of the basis covered the plot runs its inevitable course.

Okay, so I’m making the film out to be a stinker, which it surely isn’t. Ignore the underwhelming script and you find one of the finest collections of female talent gathered together and giving it all they have in the pursuit of this nonsense. Individually and collectively the females give credible performances and it is these performances which makes the film worth watching.

The cast also includes Marcia Gay Harden, doing a very amusing impression of a woman who is a little nuts after losing her man. Of course the irony here is that she teaches her student how to make their man happy. Juliet Stevenson appears as the lesbian nurse who gets kicked out for prescribing contraceptive to Giselle. Lastly there is a great performance from Ginnifer Goodwin as Connie, the girl who never thinks that she deserves love and is continually put down by Betty. There are a couple of male actors included so that Katherine can have a bit of a romantic life, but their inclusion is almost superfluous.

The disc does contain a number of extras, the least contentious of which is a music video ‘The Heart of Every Girl’ by Elton John - not one of his best but still worth including. Next up we get Artform (6 min, 33 sec) wherein the actresses ponder on the importance of art. As you can imagine, this is a bit of a hit or miss affair and about as sensible as getting a bunch of painters to talk about acting. College Now and Then (14 min, 39 sec) takes a look at the real Wellesley College and What Women Wanted 1953 (10 min, 43 sec) is a presumptive little piece looking at the aspirations of women in the fifties. The disc is rounded off with trailers for Surf’s Up and The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep.

Script aside this was quite an enjoyable film, mostly because of the ensemble cast.

8

Charles Packer