MONA LISA SMILE

by Bill Henry on Dec.18, 2003, under Bill Henry's Movie Reviews

Mona Lisa Smile

Directed by Mike Newell

Opens nationwide 12/19/2003

1/2

Movie stars have different obligations than regular actors. It was William Goldman who noted in Adventures in the Screen Trade that unless their name is John Wayne or Clint Eastwood (and more recently Jack Nicholson), a starâ€™s time to strut and fret their hour upon the stage is brief and nobody sheds many tears when whatever ephemera propelled them into the heavens is mysteriously extinguished and they plunge back to the world of mere mortalsâ€”and, as with most things Hollywood, women have it worse. Movie icons have to protect their star status first and foremost with little real gain from taking risks. Having said that, it is a tad hard-hearted (though tempting) to continually hammer Julia Roberts for taking a slew of star vehicles with no higher aim than extending her time in the upper strata she ascended during her Pretty Woman period.

However, with an Oscar already in hand, you would have thought that Julia would have gotten the desire to do her own Dead Poets Society out of her system. But instead we get Mona Lisa Smile which takes the radical stand that women should get educations for their own sake and not just automatically opt to become wives and mothers. Oddly, despite its obviousness, this is the least offensive thing that Julia Roberts has signed up for in quite a while.

Julia plays a Berkeley art history professor (although, facing facts, true stars only play themselves) brought east as an emergency fill-in just prior to Wellesley Collegeâ€™s 1953-1954 academic year. Desirous of casting her academic pearls before the best and the brightest of female academia, Roberts finds that her astonishingly accomplished students are, to a woman, more interested in getting their Mrs. than any BAs. She also seems quite naÃ¯ve in thinking that her personal life and academic stands will go un-remarked upon in a Wellesley depicted as a hidebound bastion of stereotypical Eisenhower-era conservatism.

Leaving aside to what degree one might be more likely to find the academically-interested at a Seven Sisters school, a great deal of the charm here is provided by a trio of young actresses: Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, and Maggie Gyllenhall–each of whom is more technically adept and who have already made more significant contributions to the world of cinema than their better-compensated leader whose glow they here bask in. One has to give grudging respect to Roberts that unlike Erin Brockovich, the other actors are given good scenes and are not simply there to worship at the altar of Roberts. In addition to the trio of teen titans, Marcia Gay Harden (as Roberts landlady and the schoolâ€™s social graces teacher) is particularly noteworthy following up her well-acted thankless shlub character in Mystic River with a similarly well-acted and thankless job.

Some credit should be given to director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Dance With a Stranger, Donnie Brasco)â€”certainly a more accomplished director than are normally hitched to Julia vehicles. At various points in the movie where a lesser flick could go wrong, Newell et.al. choose less predictable paths. And whether he kept her mugging, tics, and pratfalls to a minimum or whether the audience just lucked out is a question that will have to be left to future film historians.

There is a certain enjoyable nostalgia to the movie with its college dances, old television shows, happy homemaker ads, the incomprehensible reactions to a Jackson Pollack, etc., but with every speech about how the girls should be true to themselves and not just arm adornments for potential hubbies, you are reminded just how pointless the whole exercise is. In Dead Poets Society, (complete with flawed ending) the period melodrama was at least leavened with a message that rings true even for contemporary audiences. But this battle has already been fought and won and besides giving the teen audiences a dose of vicarious sanctimony, one has to wonder if Dame Juliaâ€™s next effort will trumpet the importance of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.

And a final word about the title. Her fellow professor and later love interest played by Dominic West (f#$%ing Jimmy McNulty of cableâ€™s The Wire) dubs Roberts as Mona Lisa for no particular reason. At least da Vinci gave us a Mona Lisa with a mysterious tight-lipped smile. JR should take a cue. Over the last decade-plus I have seen more close-ups of Juliaâ€™s teeth than her dental hygienist. And that slit mouth grin is starting to look a little too uncomfortably like Sean Young.

–Bill Henry