Mona Lisa Smile

Review by Clint Morris

A new-age teacher with novel ideas and the tendency to not conform arrives at an overtly strict school to shake things up.

It looks as if the students are too far gone, and any suggestion to change tradition is met with puzzlement and haughtiness, but said teacher is destined to find a way to break through to the android pupils. And does.

That was either the plot of 1989's Dead Poet's Society, starring Robin Williams as a dissenting English educator who gets the kids of a snooty prep school thinking for themselves, or it's a quick run-down of the newest Julia Roberts vehicle.

In it, the 'Pretty Woman' plays an art history teacher who must get through to the young women students of her class - all of whom are convinced that a female's job is to simply marry and have babies, all the while getting dinner on the table by five for their husbands.

In short: You'll be hard pressed finding any difference between the two films.

In Mike Newell's Mona Lisa Smile, the young students (it's a real 'hot' teen affair, with Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Maggie Gyllenhaal all present) of Wellesley College are about to meet a young radical intent on teaching them more than pastels.

But it's easier said than done. It's 1953, and as far as the young women are concerned they're simply at the school as a stepping stone to marrying one of the Ivy Leaguers.

After a rude awakening on her first day - where new teacher Katherine [Roberts] realises her students have read and memorised the whole text and seemingly know just as much as their teacher does - our educator takes it upon herself to re-write the class syllabus: It's out with the books and time to think and answer for themselves.

Mona Lisa Smile could have been a joke of gigantic proportions, but where it scores points is by not preaching the value of young women thinking for themselves and swearing off marriage.

Instead it paints a depiction of both sides of the story and states you can do both - have a career of your choice and get married - albeit doing it a little unsubtle at times. But subtlety obviously isn't something the film's too concerned with. From the sappy title to the trailer, and ultimately the all-star cast - it's as transparent as window glass.

One gets the succinct feeling that this studio picture is more concerned with the star power headlining it, than the storyline within. But with that in mind, it's a winner. Julia Roberts is her usual charming self in the role of the youngish teacher who changes these young women's lives and with such hot up-and-comers like Dunst, Gyllenhaal and Stiles in tow, it's even more the picture - with some stellar turns and not unexpectedly, an attractive frame for the picture.

Granted, it's more fluff than Dead Poets, and isn't half as fresh or compelling, but sometimes even a xerox copy of something more original can look 'near' as good.

3 out of 5

Mona Lisa Smile
Australian release: Thursday February 19th
Cast: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dominic West, Marcia Gay Harden, Topher Grace.
Director: Mike Newell.
Website: Click here.