Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
Directed by Mike Newell
Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.
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What critics compared Mona Lisa Smile to
This is a girly Dead Poets Society, covering the 1953-54 school year at Boston's posh Wellesley women's college.
…n the roster of holiday heart-swellers, this week brings a pair of distaff variations on pre-tested formulae: one a girls'-own Dead Poets Society, the other an XX-rated Full Monty.
Mona Lisa Smile, in which Julia Roberts (whose company produced the film) plays a freethinking, Berkeley-educated art-history professor at the all-girls Wellesley College in 1953, is being promoted as a chick-flick spin on Dead Poets Society, in which Robin Williams played a freethinking English teacher at an all-boys New England prep school in 1959.
Those who have seen multiple variations on the trusty "Teacher Who Changed My Life" theme, from "Dead Poets Society" to "The Emperor's Club," will recognize much of "Mona Lisa Smile."
It's Dead Poets Society as a chick flick, without the compelling drama and inspiration of Peter Weir's 1989 film.
So what we have here is another Dead Poets Society or To Sir With Love where the teacher eschews the "three R's" to teach kids about opening their hearts and taking a chance.
While Mike Newell, who is directing the next Potter, is a decent director, it's hard to imagine the man behind 4 Weddings and a Funeral and Mona Lisa Smile continuing in the same dark vein that Cuaron began to mine here.
While Donnie Brasco is constantly absorbing, it's damaged by a few continuity problems, which may have occurred because it was directed by an unlikely choice, the British Mike Newell (Enchanted April, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mona Lisa Smile).
Here's a film by Mike Newell ("Donnie Brasco,'' "Four Weddings and a Funeral''), starring Julia Roberts, and the best that could be said for it is that the subject holds interest.
With versatile veteran Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Donnie Brasco") calling the directorial shots, "Mona Lisa Smile" moves at a brisk clip and smoothly juggles its multiple subplots.
On paper, Mona Lisa Smile looks like a dream come true: one of the biggest stars in the world alongside three of Hollywood’s hottest young actresses; a concept only an idiot would turn down (“It’s Dead Poets Society with chicks!”); and a respected director (Mike Newell, who made the excellent Donnie Brasco) to tie it all together.
The director, Mike Newell, a seeming schizophrenic who has given us Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco , and much in between, has already dabbled in the so-called "woman's movie" once before.