Rotten
Roberts asks her students rhetorical questions: What makes art good or bad? Who decides? But the movie answers them as canonically as the syllabus Roberts abandons.
Elizabeth M. Tamny, Chicago Reader
Mona Lisa Smile
They had everything. She showed them more.
2003 · 1h 57m · PG-13
Drama, History, Romance
Directed by
Mike Newell
Overview
Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.
Director and cast
- Mike Newell Director
- Julia Roberts as Katherine Ann Watson
- Kirsten Dunst as Betty Warren
- Julia Stiles as Joan Brandwyn
- Maggie Gyllenhaal as Giselle Levy
- Ginnifer Goodwin as Constance Baker
- Dominic West as Bill Dunbar
- Juliet Stevenson as Amanda Armstrong
- Taylor Roberts as Louise
- Marcia Gay Harden as Nancy Abbey
- John Slattery Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
33%
Tomatometer
Rotten
Women of the Fifties, rise up in protest.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Fresh
In terms of the gap between the movie it's trying to be and the movie it actually is, Mona Lisa Smile is in many ways indefensible. Yet for all its problems, it's satisfyingly movielike.
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
Fresh
Anyone who's ever been moved by a teacher to dream a slightly bigger dream than his parents thought he or she was capable of achieving ought to love the film, for it gets at a truer model of teacher's inspiration.
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
Rotten
Like the turtleneck cashmere sweaters and girdles that tie down these promising women, the movie is trite and trussed.
Desson Thomson, Washington Post
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