Mona Lisa Smile (DVD)

Katherine Watson is a free thinking, independent teacher who gets a job at the influential and conservation Wellesley college to teach Art History. Here her motivating and passionate lessons cause upset to the schools highly traditional values and she fight with the schools higher Archie. But something about her confident and shocking delivery captures the hearts and minds of the students and she encourage them to chase after their dreams rather than fit into the ’housewife’ role that society demands of them…. Tis true that Mona Lisa Smile is cheesy and predictable, its also true that it adds nothing new to the movie industry and has some cringe inducing ...  Read the complete review

Its fall, 1953. The start of a new academic year for Wellesley College for young women in Boston is also a new start for Katherine Watson. Nervously yet with anticipation, she gets off the train after a long journey from California, looking forward to the opportunity to help shape who she considers to be the brightest young women in the country through her art class. Things are not quite as she expected however, as she finds out when she enters her first class. To her horror, the whole class have already learned the core text, leaving her nothing to teach. On top of that, she finds that the girls she teaches are basically ladies in waiting until the time at ...  Read the complete review

~~The Plot~~ Julia Roberts stars as Katherine Watson. Having recently graduated from UCLA she is hired to teach 'Art History' as Wellesley College' which is a female only, prestigious, upper class college. The film is set in America, 1953. She arrives with hopes of teaching bright minds, training future doctors and lawyers and is disappointed to find that it is merely an upper class 'finishing school' teaching young ladies elocoution, housewifery and other attributes of a 1950s woman. Katherine feels this is outdated and tried to challenge the authority to push the girls to their educational best...does she suceed? Can she change society?...Katherine learns a thing ...  Read the complete review

The Storyline ----------------- It's 1953 and recently graduated teacher, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) is hired to teach Art History at the prestigious, all-girl, Wellesley College. When confronted by the conservative traditions and outdated values that they instil into the girls, she attempts to inspire her class to challenge these values and to define their own lives and destinies. Does she succeed, or does the age old traditions over power her bohemian way of thinking and living? Well, I'm not going to say, you will have to watch this film to find out. There are several parts to this story, with the main theme being about Katherine ...  Read the complete review

Mona Lisa Smile is a thoughtful treatment of the subject of both female identity and the history of art. Now if that isn’t enough to scare the pants off macho action film fans then I don’t know what is, but it’s a good film in its own right. While obviously it will appeal far more to women (let’s face it, men don’t tend to want to watch two hours of different women being miserable to different extents, which is basically what most of this sort of film are), it does offer enough food for thought that some men will certainly find it interesting too. (Just don’t tell me that this is “getting in touch with my feminine side” - as if the gentler qualities are the sole domain ...  Read the complete review