Mona Lisa Smile

Plot

A free-thinking art professor teaches conservative 50's Wellesley girls to question their traditional societal roles.

Release Year: 2003

Rating: 6.1/10 (31,905 voted)

Critic's Score: 45/100

Director:
Mike Newell

Stars: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles

Storyline
Katherine Ann Watson has accepted a position teaching art history at the prestigious Wellesley College. Watson is a very modern woman, particularly for the 1950s, and has a passion not only for art but for her students. For the most part, the students all seem to be biding their time, waiting to find the right man to marry. The students are all very bright and Watson feels they are not reaching their potential. Altough a strong bond is formed between teacher and student, Watson's views are incompatible with the dominant culture of the college.

Writers: Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal

Cast:

Julia Roberts
–

Katherine Ann Watson

Kirsten Dunst
–

Betty Warren

Julia Stiles
–

Joan Brandwyn

Maggie Gyllenhaal
–

Giselle Levy

Ginnifer Goodwin
–

Connie Baker

Dominic West
–

Bill Dunbar

Juliet Stevenson
–

Amanda Armstrong

Marcia Gay Harden
–

Nancy Abbey

John Slattery
–

Paul Moore

Marian Seldes
–

President Jocelyn Carr

Donna Mitchell
–

Mrs. Warren

Terence Rigby
–

Dr. Edward Staunton

Jennie Eisenhower
–

Girl at the Station

Leslie Lyles
–

Housing Director

Laura Allen
–

Susan Delacorte

Taglines:
In a world that told them how to think, she showed them how to live.

Details

Official Website:
Columbia Tristar [France] |
Official site [Brazil] |

Release Date: 19 December 2003

Filming Locations: Massachusetts, USA

Box Office Details

Budget: $65,000,000

(estimated)

Opening Weekend: $11,528,498
(USA)
(21 December 2003)
(2677 Screens)

Gross: $63,695,760
(USA)
(22 February 2004)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

117 min

Did You Know?

Trivia:

Normally blonde Kirsten Dunst dyed her hair brown for the movie while normally brown Julia Stiles has blonde hair.

Goofs:

Errors in geography:
When Katherine visits Joan's house to show her law school brochures, there are palm plants in the front of the house. These plants would not survive in the climate of Massachusetts where the film is set.

Quotes:

[first lines]

Betty Warren:
[voiceover]
All her life, she had wanted to teach at Wellesley College. So, when a position opened in the Art History department, she pursued it single-mindedly until she was hired. It was whispered that Katherine Watson, a first-year teacher from Oakland State, made up in brains what she lacked in pedigree. Which was why this bohemian from California was on her way to the most conservative college in the nation.

User Review

A disappointing picture of Wellesley College in 1953

Rating: 1/10

As a graduate of Wellesley College, 1952, I was eager to see the movie.
For
a while I thought maybe it was supposed to be a satire. I had read
reviews
but no one mentioned satire. It was so ludicrous, so over the top, so
busy
giving us stereotypes, and so far from my experience that it was
depressing.
I didn't mind the Julia Roberts character although she is probably
anachronistic. Certainly those young women, so well dressed for classes,
talking back to her in well thought out sentences full of vitriol were
figments of Hollywood's imagination. I remember no courses offered,
either
in classrooms or rooms in dorms or faculty housing, on "poise," proper
table
setting, etc. And nowhere in the movie did any of the girls discuss ideas
(except in the art class). The nighttime dormitory sessions were all about
men, getting husbands, and pointing fingers at Giselle, the "whore." In
actuality, we used to stay up late discussing ideas, and we were
passionate
about such things as academic freedom.

The plush dormitory rooms were more figments of Hollywood's imagination.
Our rooms were of the bare bones variety. I remember bringing a
comfortable
chair of my own from home.

I loved my art history and music appreciation courses. They changed my
life. I had known nothing of art before Wellesley and only the Warsaw
Concerto for classical music. But those two courses informed my life and
have stayed with me all these years, enriching my experience. I had a
career as a high school English teacher and my literature courses were
wonderful for that purpose and for expanding my reading. But the art and
music courses were special.

Good acting; good costumes for the most part; the people looked authentic
for the times (except too dressed up for class; we wore skirts and
blouses,
no blue jeans). It was nice to see some of the beautiful campus. I don't
remember ever taking part in hoop rolling, daisy chain, the opening day
ceremony in front of the chapel.

Finally, what was the point of making such a movie today? To suggest how
far we've come from the 1950s? To ridicule what was then? After all,
there
was much that was good. I mean I feel so lucky to have been able to go to
a
place like Wellesley even if it was for the privileged. It certainly was
not as conservative as the movie depicted; nor was it a "finishing
school."
Professors were continually opening our minds to more and more knowledge.
The canon then may have been mostly men (we read almost all male writers
in
our English courses, but that's how it was). What was wonderful, however,
was being with all women, being able to speak up freely in class, being
able
to win positions of authority in extra curricular organizations like the
college newspaper. Not having to compete with men.

I was really disappointed, In the Women's Room after the movie, I
questioned everyone there…there were a couple my age or a little younger
and then a few a generation or more younger. Everyone had liked the
movie!
One young woman tried to tell me it wasn't just about Wellesley; they were
depicting the 50s in general. But the fact is the 50s in general were not
that dismal!