Genre: Romance, Drama, Comedy, Marriage, School / Campus, Teenage, Period Piece, Coming Of Age
Tagline: In a world that told them how to think, she showed them how to live.
Plot: Katherine Watson (Roberts) travels from California to the New England campus of Wellesley College in the fall of 1953 to teach art history. In the post-war era, Katherine expects that her students, the best and the brightest in the country, will take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. Soon after her arrival, however, Katherine discovers that the environment at the prestigious institution is steeped in conformity. According to their poise and elocution teacher Nancy Abbey (Marcia Gay Harden), an engagement ring on a young woman’s finger is considered a bigger prize than a well-rounded education.When Katherine encourages her students to think independently, she runs afoul of the more conservative faculty and alumni, including one of her students, the upper crust Betty Warren (Dunst). The recently married Betty becomes a formidable adversary when Katherine persuades her best friend, Joan Brandwyn (Stiles), to apply to Yale Law School - even as Joan is awaiting a proposal of marriage from her boyfriend. For the smart and provocative Giselle Levy (Gyllenhaal), Katherine becomes a much-needed role model and mentor. The sweet and shy Connie Baker (Goodwin) also draws courage from Katherine’s example and gains the confidence to break through her insecurities. In a
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 Discussion forum for this movie
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 A movie about a maverick ought to be a little daring as well, and "Mona Lisa Smile" is as safe and predictable as chintz.  --Jami Bernard (New York Daily News)
Mona Lisa Smile is an exercise in relentless mediocrity - a trite melodrama that raises a number of interesting possibilities, then ignores them in favor of taking the "safe" path. In the process, it undermines its own thesis of female empowerment, and is guilty of underutilizing a vast pool of talent. ... If the point of Mona Lisa Smile was to be as bland as possible, it accomplishes the goal. --James Berardinelli (ReelViews)
Those costumes! Those actresses! All those daring and unconventional ideas! Oh, wait -- this beautiful, mindless '50s women's-college flick doesn't have any of those.--Stephanie Zacharek (Salon)
movie, directed by Mike Newell, may be a little too aware of its sexual politics and might have been more absorbing if Katherine and her students were fighting their way together out of the chains of gender slavery. But the characters involve us, we sympathize with their dreams and despair of their matrimonial tunnel vision, and at the end we are relieved that we listened to Miss Watson and became the wonderful people who we are today.  --ROGER EBERT (Chicago Sun-Times)
Though generally competent and amiable, the picture's accumulation of well-worn beats invite so many unfavorable comparisons to such classics as "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "The Browning Version," "Stand and Deliver" and numerous others that it's hard to give it points for much of anything other than strong performances.  --Wade Major (Boxoffice Magazine)
The best thing about the new Julia Roberts picture "Mona Lisa Smile" is that it's not really a Julia Roberts picture at all. It's an ensemble piece, on the theme of incipient feminism, set at Wellesley College in 1953.--Stephen Hunter (Washington Post)
Mona Lisa Smile isn't the Dead Poets Society for girls. Calling it that would be giving it too much of a compliment. D-- (E! Online)
The final product is horribly confused and compromised, craving to be everything to everybody and, in the process, winding up no good to no one. The film wants to celebrate nonconformity, but adheres to hoary, Hollywood cliches. 2/2--Glenn Whipp (L.A. Daily News)
Mona Lisa Smile's lesson of the day--that the '50s were an oppressive decade for women--is delivered in an unoriginal manner through such shallow and unlikable characters that its message lacks an emotional punch.  --Guylaine Cadorette (Hollywood.com)
Self-congratulatory diatribe against '50s conformity set in an elite women's college.--Kirk Honeycutt (Hollywod Reporter)
Laced with a seething hatred of men, and Julia Roberts’s refusal to play period, and “Mona Lisa Smile” is a pretty unpleasant film from a director, Mike Newell, who I thought knew better. D+--Brian Orndorf (FilmJerk.com)
"Mona Lisa Smile" takes a bunch of potentially interesting characters and puts them in orbit around Roberts' character, Katherine Watson, hoping something substantive will result. Instead, the characters fly off on their own paths, which intersect chiefly because of their proximity.--Ron Weiskind (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
It's refreshing that a movie that on the surface looks so formula has some surprises and takes some chances. 8/10--Nate Anderson (Movie-Vault.com)
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| Directed by |
Mike Newell
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Donnie Brasco, Four Weddings and a Funeral |
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| Written by |
Lawrence Konner
Mercury Rising, The Jewel of the Nile, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace | |
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| Cast |
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 | Kirsten Dunst
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 |
 | Julia Stiles
The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, 10 Things I Hate About You |
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| Music By |
Rachel Portman
Chocolat, The Cider House Rules, The Manchurian Candidate |
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I really wanted to like Mona Lisa Smile for the way it encourages women to think for themselves, and make the choices that only they feel are best. And maybe with a stronger lead character, that message would have resonated louder. Instead, all I learnedwas a bunch of boring lessons in etiquette.  --David Levine (FilmCritic.com)
A 50s-set, female-take on Dead Poets Society, Mona Lisa Smile is like an awful hangover: stomach-churning, stupid and avoidable.  --Nev Pierce (BBC Films)
A waste of good actresses – Mona Lisa Smile would dearly love to be an all-girl Dead Poets Society, but it fails dismally, thanks to a tedious script and a dull, uninspiring central performance from Roberts. --Matthew Turner (ViewLondon)
Part soap opera, part old-fashioned feminist tract, "Mona Lisa Smile" isn't boring, but it is sanctimonious, relentlessly predictable and willfully ignorant of the period it's set in. --Jonathan Foreman (New York Post)
Roberts' little romantic interludes away from the girls are nice, but they just don't fit in with the rest of this grim subject matter. Her smile is still dazzling, but there's not much here to actually smile about.--Jeffrey M. Anderson (San Francisco Examiner)
Exquisitely performed, well-crafted period piece about an original, daring woman which somehow fails to be either original or daring. 6/10--Anton Bitel (Movie Gazette)
"Mona Lisa Smile" should be moving, but it isn't. We should feel swept up by it, but we don't. There's a spark missing, and where it's missing is in Roberts' all too reserved performance.--Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle)
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