Movie Review: Mona Lisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile, starring Julia Roberts, is a dramatic film

that depicts the issues of the early feminist era of the mid-20th
century through a story about how a professor affects the lives
of her students at a female institution. The film was released on
December 19th, 2003 and was given a rating of PG-13 by the
MPAA and made 141.3 million USD in box office sales. The film
has an overall runtime of 1 hour and 57 minutes. In Mona Lisa
Smile, Julia Roberts plays a novice art history professor,
Katherine Watson, from California at Wellesley College, a
prestigious, all-female, conservative college. Being from a more
progressive part of the country, Watson is initially depicted as a
negative influence on her students who have been taught by
their parents to have a traditional way of thinking. She quickly
learns that her students are book smart, but are not aware of
how to think for themselves. Determined to change their
outlook on their education, Watson makes a significant change
to her lesson plans. She challenges her students paradigms toward learning and opens their eyes to true
love and life. The students attending Wellesley College were brought up with the idea that they must
attend college to find a man to marry. However, through non-traditional education methods that lead to
some controversy between the colleges administration and Watson, Watson strives to change the
students perspective on the life they are told they must lead. Throughout the film, strong teacher-
student relationships develop between Watson, her students, and other professors despite Watsons
incompatible views with those of the college. The relationships that are built between the characters are
challenged when college and social issues regarding the concept of college arise throughout the film.
The first of many college issues portrayed in Mona Lisa Smile is the pressure students feel from
their parents regarding their education. Throughout the film, man instances occur where parents of
Watsons students show their deep concern for their daughters schooling through comments, actions,
or conversations. Although their concern initially appears to be for their daughters become
knowledgeable and competent women, it becomes quickly apparent that their parents are just worried
about their daughters receiving the label a college degree offers them so that they hold a higher
standard of appearance in society and are more desirable to men. This issue is demonstrated by the
multiple scenes of students not being interested in their courses because they feel they were forced to
be in them, their parents making comments about their lack of an option to receive a college degree or
do anything other than go to college and get married, and the students and administration of the
college making special accommodations for married students. In the film, this issue is especially
enhanced and validated by the social and cultural issues associated with the time era.
In addition to Mona Lisa Smile demonstrating the issue of college students having pressure from
their parents to receive an education, the film also conveys the idea of the college experience students
go through being a result of the local and nationwide events happening during a students education.
Throughout the film, the issues of labels, stereotyping, and diversity are brought up frequently. These
problems are depicted through the display of Watsons experience becoming accustomed to the college,
the Northeastern, American culture, and an overall different way of life. She is labeled by her students,
the colleges administration, and her coworkers as liberal and progressive for having a forward way
of thinking. Although in todays society these words are part of a common political language, in the mid-
20th century, these labels nearly cost Watson her job. She was asked to make changes to her course to
involve more traditional aspects of art history and to teach her students in a more traditional way. Since
the overwhelming majority of the society and surrounding community of Wellesley College had a
conservative mindset at that time in American history, the students at the college also experienced a
conservative education that did not challenge the ideals and morals their parents instilled in them until a
professor like Watson showed up.
Another issue portrayed by the film is the ability college has to make a significant impact on a
persons life. Mona Lisa Smile shows through a collection of actions and conversations between
characters that Wellesley College had an abundant amount of graduates of its years of existence that
strictly followed the expectations upheld by the college that impacted the way they carried out their
lives following their graduation. Contrast is shown through the development of teacher-student,
student-student, and teacher-student relationships throughout the film and how those relationships
affect the students desire to live their lives in a particular way. The development of these relationships
in college inspires students in the film to make life-changing decisions and take opportunities that they
would not have otherwise made or taken had they not been in college and built those relationships.
The film also illustrates a prominent college issue of students blindly committing to their
education without really knowing what they want to do with their futures or if they enjoy the particular
subject they are studying. The students in the film are intelligent women with the discipline and
determination to learn the information required of them in their courses. However, their desire to learn
information stops there and does not translate into a passion for dedicating their lives to the knowledge
they will learn throughout their education. Various scenes in the film show students more interested in
getting a good grade and eventually a college diploma without the ability to see college as a learning
experience rather than a destination.
Mona Lisa Smile is an incredible film that highlights and interprets numerous college issues that
were prominent in the 1950s and also relate to the issues associated with college in present-day
America. The issues outlined by the film and its characters stress the importance of their recognition and
the need for improvement in those aspects of college education. Overall, the film accurately
represented the issues it depicted and can inspire its audience to want the changes in college education
associated with the issues it portrays. In the movie, college is represented as a mandatory and mundane
experience that is challenge by outsiders beliefs. These representations are what set the scene for the
movie to inspire the reaction from its audience and are the reason it was given a four star rating.
 Works Cited

Goldsmith-Thomas, Elaine, Deborah Schindler, Paul Schiff, Lawrence Konner, Mark D.

Rosenthal, Mike Newell, Julia Roberts, et al. 2004. Mona Lisa Smile. [Culver City, Calif.]:
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment.

Mona Lisa Smile (2003) Double Sided Autographed Movie Poster. Digital Image. GoAutographs.
February 21, 2017. http://www.goautographs.com/autographed-movie-posters/21-mona-
lisa-smile-signed-memorabilia-julia-roberts-kirsten-dunst-multiple-signatures-
8944463555795.html