Barely Passing
The Mona Lisa Smile in question belongs, of course, to its star, Julia Roberts. Why? For no particular reason, actually. It’s just what Italian professor Bill Dunbar (Dominic West) calls her — Mona Lisa. But the filmmakers, deciding this is not reason enough to name their film Mona Lisa Smile, tack on a discussion among know-it-all, have-it-all Wellesley College women about the significance of, yes, Mona Lisa’s smile — which, they deduce, may not be an indication of happiness but a façade behind which an unhappy woman hides. Class, write a 5,000-word essay on the use of symbolism in modern Hollywood cinema. You have 120 minutes … go.
If you’ve seen the trailer for Mona Lisa Smile, you know what waits for you at the multiplex: A liberal art-history teacher goes to Wellesley in 1953 to release brilliant young minds from their velvet shackles. It’s Julia Roberts as Robin Williams in Goodbye, Mr. Chips’ Emperor’s Club. There’s even a moment when the women of Wellesley stand on their seats to cheer their liberator. Worry not; I’ve given nothing away, much like Julia Roberts herself, once more cast in the role of Julia Roberts.
Roberts’ Katherine Watson has come from California to preach the gospel of modern art to young women raised to believe nothing is more sacred than tradition. Of course, she’ll run into all manner of obstacles, including an administration that frowns upon her progressive thinking and a student body that initially believes she’s subversive. Will she win them over with her guts, brains and that smile, or will she wind up a victim of custom? Don’t look at your neighbor’s paper.
Kirsten Dunst is one of several It Girls in this boarding school for rising starlets; also present are Maggie Gyllenhaal and Julia Stiles. Dunst delivers her lines through an upper-crust sneer; her Betty is the villain here, a star student and writer for the school paper who damns Katherine for teaching that there’s more to life than a husband and a family.
Gyllenhaal, as Giselle Levy, is Betty’s opposite — the girl with a diaphragm and a pack of smokes in her purse. Somewhere in between is Stiles’ Joan Brandwyn, who is torn between Yale Law School and Harvard man Tommy Donegal (Topher Grace), who would prefer them to be a one-attorney family. Katherine would prefer that they all carpe diem — or just be themselves. But it seems she will have no impact on the students; their decisions are made for them, not by them.
Maybe that’s the sly joke of this glossy put-on from the director of Pushing Tin and the screenwriters of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Katherine galvanizes no one, not even herself. You will leave Mona Lisa Smile with only the slightest hint of the grin every slick studio movie gives you — the grin of reassurance and superiority. But you will not be changed, only out about eight bucks.
