Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) a novice professor from UCLA lands a job in the art history department at Wellesley College in the fall of 1953 and she’s thrilled at the prospect of educating some of the brightest young women in the country. But her lofty image of Wellesley quickly fizzles when she discovers that despite its academic reputation the school fosters an environment where success is measured by the size of a girl’s engagement ring. Besides learning about fresco techniques and physics the women take classes in the art of serving tea to their husband’s bosses something that doesn’t sit well with the forward-thinking Katherine who openly encourages her students to strive for goals other than marriage. Katherine inspires a group of students specifically Joan (Julia Stiles) and Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal) but newlywed Betty (Kirsten Dunst) feels Katherine looks down on her for choosing a husband over a career. Betty goes on the offensive and uses her column in the school paper to drive a wedge between the professor and the stuffy faculty. But while Betty puts on a happily married face her hostility towards Katherine is actually misplaced anger stemming from her miserable marriage to a cheating charlatan.
Katherine is Mona Lisa Smile‘s most complex and intriguing character and Roberts is a fitting choice for the part. Like an old soul the actress has a depth that’s perfect for a character like Katherine who’s enlightened and ahead of her time. But Katherine never emotionally connects with any of her students which isn’t surprising since they’re so bitchy and self-absorbed. Perhaps more time should have been spent developing the young women’s characters and building their relationships with Katherine sooner but as it is the underdeveloped friendships between the women will leave viewers feeling indifferent rather than inspired. The worst of the bunch is Dunst‘s character Betty who is intent on making everyone around her feel unworthy. She has her reasons of course but they’re revealed so late in the story that it’s hard to suddenly empathize with her after having spent three-quarters of the film hating her guts. Stiles‘ character Joan is perhaps the most congenial but like Betty she never develops a strong bond with her teacher. The most “liberal” of the girls is Giselle played by Gyllenhaal but the character suffers the same burden as the rest: She’s unlikable. Giselle’s penchant for sleeping with professors and married men is so odious that not even her 11th hour broken-home story can salvage her character.
While Mona Lisa’s smile in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting has often been described as subtle director Mike Newell‘s star-studded drama is anything but that; Mona Lisa Smile is so heavy-handed that unlike the painting for which it was named there is nothing left for moviegoers to ponder or debate. The film plays like a montage of ’50s ideological iconography: A school nurse gets fired for dispensing birth control; a teacher refers to Lucille Ball as a “communist”; Betty’s prayers are answered when she gets what every woman dreams of–a washer and dryer. But the film’s critical insight into ’50s culture isn’t as shocking as it thinks it is and the way it highlights feminist issues is as uninspired as trivial as a fine-art reproduction. Newell also spends too much time basking in the aura of the ’50s era focusing on countless parties dances and weddings sequences that while visually ambitious are superfluous. The film may be historically accurate but its characters story and message will leave moviegoers feeling empty. A climactic scene for example in which Katherine’s students ride their bikes alongside her car as a show of support comes across as a tool to evoke sentiment that just doesn’t exist.
