Mona Lisa Smile

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Mona Lisa Smile
Directed by Mike Newell
Produced by Joe Roth
Written by Lawrence Konner
Mark Rosenthal
Starring Julia Roberts
Kirsten Dunst
Julia Stiles
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Dominic West
Claire Wild
Juliet Stevenson
and
Marcia Gay Harden
Editing by Mick Audsley
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) December 19, 2003
Running time 117 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $65,000,000

Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 American film that was produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst, and Julia Stiles. The title is a reference to the Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and the song of the same name, originally performed by Nat King Cole, which was covered by Seal for the movie. The film is a loose adaptation of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a novel by Muriel Spark, and the title also references that text.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Mona Lisa Smile tells the story of Katherine Ann Watson (played by Julia Roberts), a feminist teacher who studied at UCLA graduate school and left as a first-year teacher from "Oakland State" University (thought to be a fictionalized University of California, Berkeley), leaves her boyfriend behind in Los Angeles, California in 1953, to teach at Wellesley College, a conservative women's private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, United States.

Watson tries to open her students' minds to their freedom to do whatever they want with their lives. She encourages her students to believe in themselves, to study to become career professionals, and to improve their economic futures. She uses her modern art teachings as a vehicle to put across her opinion to the young women that her students need not conform to stereotypes of women made by society. She felt that Modern art was a questioning of the status quo and could be used as an eye-opener for her students that were confused about their role in 1950's society, even introducing the students to the work of Jackson Pollock a member of the art avant garde at the time. She feels that women could do more things in life than solely adopt the roles of wives and mothers. In one scene of the movie, she shows her students four newspaper ads, and asks them to question what the future will think of the idea that women are born into the roles of wives and mothers.

Watson's ideas and ways of teaching are contrary to methods deemed acceptable by the school's directors, conservative women who believe firmly that Watson should not use her class to express her points of views or befriend students, and should stick only to teaching art. Watson is warned that she could lose her job if she continues to interact with students as she has been doing.

Undaunted, Watson becomes stronger in her speeches about feminism and the future of women. She is a firm believer that the outlook of women in society needed to be changed if women were to achieve better futures, and that she needs to instill a spirit of change among her students.

Watson eventually breaks things off with her boyfriend, Paul Moore (John Slattery), after a disastrous wedding proposal during a visit of his from California. She eventually starts a relationship with Italian teacher Bill Dunbar (Dominic West). Although the relationship is frowned upon by the faculty at Wellesley College, due to inter-office romances being discouraged, the two continue seeing each other. However, Watson ends the relationship after finding out that West lied about his military service as he did not serve in Europe during World War II, but was rather stationed in America.

The film also focuses on the lives of various students of Watson's, chief among them: Elizabeth "Betty" Warren (Jones) (Kirsten Dunst), a rich girl with a conservative, domineering mother (who, as head of the Alumni Association, exerts significant power and influence at Wellesley) who marries a man who is unfaithful to her, and also clashes constantly with Watson's teaching style; Constance "Connie" Baker (Ginnifer Goodwin), who has insecurities about her body while searching for a boyfriend; Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal), one of the few Jewish students at Wellesley at the time, who has affairs with teachers - including, at one point, with Bill Dunbar - and older married men, but who is also one of the first student to admire Watson; and Joan Brandwyn (Donegal) (Julia Stiles), who is initially conflicted about whether to pursue law school after graduation or become a housewife to eventual husband Tommy Donegal (Topher Grace).

Although many of the students are initially put off by Watson's style, as the film progresses, more and more begin to come around and in many cases admire her. Even Betty comes around at the end of movie, despite being her most vocal and vehement critic.

Watson chooses to leave after the one year, but, as she is leaving the campus for the last time, her students run after her car, to show their affection and to thank her for her lessons. The entire departure scene is narrated by Betty who dedicates her last editorial to Watson, explicitly stating that Watson is "an extraordinary woman" and an individual who "seeks truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image." The film ends as Betty desperately struggles to keep up with Watson's taxi as it speeds up, thereby portraying her admiration and respect for Watson.

[edit] Reaction from Wellesley alumnae

In a message to Wellesley alumnae concerning the film, Wellesley College president Diana Chapman Walsh expressed some degree of regret concerning the distressed reactions of some Wellesley alumnae to the film. Many alumnae who attended Wellesley during the 1950s felt that the film's portrayal of Wellesley as a stodgy, conservative college was inaccurate.

[edit] Campus controversy

During the filming of Mona Lisa Smile, the Wellesley College campus broke into controversy surrounding the casting of student extras. The use of the phrase "not too tan" in a casting call for current Wellesley students sparked a fear that Casting Directors were using race to discriminate against potential extras. Producers claimed that they were merely stressing the importance of finding women that had the "look of 1953", but later their response to the growing concern was that the film could not reflect the current Wellesley demographic, and had to be "accurate" to the period.

Students presented their concerns to president Diana Chapman Walsh to no avail, and began a campus-wide guerrilla campaign entitled "Too Tan for Mona Lisa Smile", with a photo roster of African-American students denied the chance to participate in the film as student extras.

Student Multicultural Affairs Coordinator Jenna O. Bond-Louden claimed that the film overrepresented the Asian student population, which was believed to be approximately three in 1953 (as the "Asian" ethnic group is not listed in the college's records), and underrepresented African-Americans: only one of the about 200 extras in the film was African-American (in reality there were 12 African-American students enrolled in a total student population of 1685, so with 200 extras approximately 1.4 of them should have been African-American).

The controversy spilled over into the local media, and producers considered a compromise of hiring willing minority students to act as production assistants. The college released a press statement highlighting the realities of Wellesley in 1953, and defending their decision to allow the film to shoot on campus. When the film's lead cast was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a select group of African-American students were allowed to attend the show's taping, including the "Too Tan for Mona Lisa Smile" leader.

Students also protested the lack of concern by the studio for their ability to attend classes as normal with the blocking of pathways, streets, and buildings during the eight days of shooting the film. Producers initially tried to adhere to the class schedule by not shooting in open areas immediately before and after classes, but that lasted only a short while. Student extras frustrated professors by missing class and important exams, and the entire campus began to speak out against the film's presence.

[edit] Places and their references

  • The classroom in which Julia Roberts teaches is in fact a Chemistry classroom in Columbia University's Havemeyer Hall, Havemeyer 309.
  • The office of Professor Bill Dunbar (played by actor Dominic West) is actually the Wellesley College quad; a grouping of four dormitories on the campus.
  • Some of the exteriors for Wellesley College and Harvard were, in fact, shot in the same courtyard at Yale's Silliman College.
  • The train station scene was shot at the Glen Ridge New Jersey Transit Station in Glen Ridge, New Jersey near Newark.

[edit] Cast

[edit] External links

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Preceded by
Along Came Polly		 Box office number-one films of 2004 (UK)
March 14		 Succeeded by
Starsky & Hutch
v • d • e
Films directed by Mike Newell
1980s
The Awakening (1980) · Bad Blood (1981) · Dance with a Stranger (1985) · The Good Father (1985) · Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987)
1990s
2000s
Mona Lisa Smile (2003) · Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) · Love in the Time of Cholera (2007)
2010s
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_Smile"
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