Customer Reviews
Carpe Diem girls! - By: Ogun Eratalay, 11 Feb 2008 
The best to summarise the film would be to calll it "The feminist Dead Poets' Society". The storylines are very similar. The campus environment of a girls' college is suddenly changed by an arts teacher who preaches her students to get a life. Not the life that is planned for them --mother & housewife. For me the film beautifully creates the same atmosphere arranged by schoolmasters, orthodox teachers, busybody parents in 1950'a America. The role of the woman in those days' society was diminished only to certain jobs & areas. This unequality is shockingly revealed through out the film. In the final scenes of the film the teacher shows slides to her students. In the slides are wonderful & happy women doing housework, cooking, cleaning, ironing. Not the life a learned woman wants, or is it?
THREE SOLID STARS! - By: F. Sweet, 24 Aug 2006 Maybe director Mike Newell was at a Hollywood cocktail party starring Julia Roberts & through bleary-eyes decided that a movie should be made about her "Mona Lisa smile." But Roberts doesn't have Mona Lisa's smile. Leonardo DaVinci painted Mona Lisa's smile as subtle, enigmatic, & mysterious, suggesting some secret knowledge just below the surface. Roberts' smile is wide & toothy, projecting a warm personality that bubbles right over the surface. Not that one's better than the other. Rather, to say that Roberts' persona, & especiallly her smile, is like Mona Lisa's is contrived. Alas, I apologize for beginning with a digression.
MONA LISA SMILE, keeps trying to make connections that just aren't there. Roberts stars as Katherine Watson, fresh out of graduate school & a new art-history professor at the prestigious, conservative Wellesley women's college in 1953. "Liberal," Berkeley-educated Katherine hopes to teach future feminist leaders at the elite college. But instead she finds that Wellesley is full of smart, young women preparing themselves for high class marriage.
Katherine encounters four girls who represent the various stereotypes the movie decides to explore: Snobby legacy student Betty (Kirsten Dunst) is prim, proper & about to be married. Bad girl Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who's from a broken home, & she has affairs with professors & married men. Intelligent Joan (Julia Stiles) is on the marriage track, too, but harbors secret ambitions to attend law school. And chubby Connie (excellent newcomer Ginnifer Goodwin) is a cello-playing loser who can't get a date. So that's the cliché team.
Predictably, Katherine's art history class doesn't take too kindly to this unconventional new teacher, who dares exposing them to modern (i.e., contemporary) art & modern feminist notions. Predictably, they soon warm to her, teaching her as much as she teaches them. It's the DEAD POETS SOCIETY -- or the PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (now, THAT was a film) formula. Yet these weren't the only movie to feature an inspirational teacher imparting life lessons into her students. Althoough Roberts had been miscast as the feminist iconoclast & her miscast smile is only the tip of the iceberg, the supporting cast is strong, even though Dunst goes a little overboard on her upper-crust accent.
Director Mike Newell tries to make a deep movie that challlenges the social standards of the 1950s. But alll he manages to do is throw some stereotypes up against other stereotypes. This produces a film that feels afraid to commit to a strong point of view or philosophy, wandering through several plot lines to a dissatisfying conclusion that's more like an afterthought. A big part of the movie's problem is in throwing around big words like "subversive" & "progressive" to describe Katherine without ever getting her to convincingly demonstrating those qualities.
What's next, Mike? DaVinci's LAST SUPPER starring your pal Mel Gibson?
A female dead poet's society... - By: Mr. Jd Ware, 27 Jan 2006 Comparisons to Dead Poet's Society - virtuallly the same film, but set in a boy's school & english lessons rather than a girl's school & art lessons - are inevitable, but what makes this film perform better than that slightly dull effort is the eclectic mix of young, up & coming actresses.
In fact, Julia Roberts (whose doing her usual Julia Robert's style acting - so not bad, just what we've come to expect from her) had better watch out - these youths will be the superstars of tomorrow, & could well take away her Best Actress Ever tag!
Among them are Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhal, Julia Stiles & Topher Grace (although that last one isn't female, but he certainly proves his worth in this film & is surely someone to look out for!). In fact, The best parts of this film are when the students are on screen. Fun, attractive & easily the most exciting bit of the film.
Because other than that, it's quite exceptionallly boring. School lessons were never fun, & when they appear in this film, it almost as if you are back in class again. Authenticity is great, but not when it's something as snooze worthy as that.
Another annoying factor is how everything in the film is related to art. Art is obviously a big factor of the film, but life doesn't always have a relevence in art. So that aspect of the film seemed forced, & at times over sentimental.
But it's hard not to get wrapped up in the young students lives. Will they marry & follow the tradition, or take on a job & be pro-feminist. By the end, you will care for each & every character, & want them to make the right choice.
Maggie Gyllenhal's sexpot temptress, & Dunst's conflict with Roberts teacher are surely the standout moments in the film.
But come the overly schmaltzy end, was this film reallly worth it? It only lasts for a school calender year, & as the film never shows what actuallly happens to the students when they leave college, it seems like a lot of feminist movement preaching & ideas had been shoved down our throat without a conclusion as to whther any of it helped the characters or not. It's not a bad film, it is just incomplete.
Extras wise, we get input from alll the main cast on the film, & some slightly interesting info comparing colleges & female life then & now.
I've read mixed reviews but it was brilliant! - By: C. L. Norton, 31 Aug 2005 
I've read mixed reviews about this film. However I would definately recommend it, WE thoroughly enjoyed it (proving its not a girls film either!) The characters are so true to life & its the kind of film that reallly makes you realise life is about being true to yourself.
I hope you rent or buy it & enjoy it as much as we did.
Made us smile - By: Ken Harrington, 17 May 2005 This is the type of film that Sunday afternoons were invented for. Nice gentle pace & Julia Roberts superb as ever. An interesting insight to the US upper class in the 1950's....
best seen with partner in hand & big box of choclates.
