Mona Lisa Smile
Reviewed by Lee Shoquist for Reel Movie Critic
H1/2
Cast
Julia Roberts	Katharine Watson
Kirsten Dunst	Betty
Julia Stiles	Joan
Maggie Gyllenhaal	Giselle
Directed by Mike Newell. A drama. Rated PG-13 for sensual content and adult situations. Sony Pictures and Revolution Studios. Running time: 117 minutes.

Mona Lisa Smile is a Julia Roberts star vehicle that plays so blandly and is so unengaging that after awhile you stop asking yourself exactly what went wrong, and pay close attention for anything going right. The story is rife with clichés, undeveloped characters, shapeless dilemmas and an overall sense that it's completely unsure what it's doing narratively, and how we should feel about it.

Uncharacteristically directed by the usually excellent Mike Newell, the film posits its supposedly radical heroine, Katherine Watson (Roberts), as an ex-Berkeley girl turned free thinking art history professor at snobbish Wellesley College for girls, circa 1953. Arriving wide-eyed, she immediately learns that the over-achieving brats and oppressive faculty treat her with superior disregard and the world is anything but forward and inviting (treated by screenwriters Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal with sledgehammer subtlety).

The students are empty, one-lined character descriptions. There's the blasé sexpot (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the pious, marriage-minded snob (Kirsten Dunst), the most likely to succeed (Julia Stiles) and the overweight, shy one (Ginnifer Goodwin). Along for the ride are a campus ditz (Marcia Gay Harden) and a persecuted lesbian nurse (Juliet Stevenson), as well as an oh-so-dreamy Italian professor (Dominic West) with a secret up his sleeve.

Let's get one thing straight - the film is in love with the idea that its "progressive" 1953 heroine is counterculture, unconventional and a challenge to The Establishment. As played by Roberts and written by Konner and Rosenthal, Katherine is about the most conventional, girl-next-door version of a rabble-rouser that anyone could imagine. And though she's constantly scoffed at by silly, cliché authority stiffs, of the kind that only exist in movies like this, we can't imagine why such an obviously friendly and likable young teacher would be ostracized and put-upon so severely. In fact, she seems so traditional that at one point she even seems out of place getting drunk.

Casting Roberts in the role certainly doesn't help, since she's no one's idea of a radical (save Erin Brokovich) and about the most ebullient and accessible person in the movies today (though Cameron Diaz is giving her a run for her literal money). This role calls for a more daring, edgy performer, possibly a hell raiser like an early Angelina Jolie.

Casting aside, a bigger problem is in not showing us more of what happens in the classroom. If you're going to make a film about a teacher who inspires her students, you better get in there and see that development process, the trust, the flowering of young minds, the heartbreaks and victories. Mona Lisa Smile, on the other hand, containing but a few stock and overwritten classroom scenes, completely glosses over the academic development dynamics in favor of silly domesticities regarding the narrow conception of the 1953 woman and its consequences and compromises.

These girls display little if any interest in art, beyond static regurgitation of textbook descriptions. Nowhere in the film do we feel their adolescence has been affected by it, romanticized by it or enriched by it, as we did in the wonderful Peter Weir film Dead Poet's Society, with its clandestine, societal poetry readings and musings on the vitality of life and finality of death. Even a critical juncture where Watson drags the girls off to see a Jackson Pollock up close falls flat and lacks awe.

Instead, the observations on art are treated more as a peripheral nuisance to the film's larger agenda of offering an obvious portrait of young women, cornered by institutions and nervously testing the waters of non-conformity.

The supporting actresses are given nothing much interesting to do, hampered by a script that offers them nothing but thin character descriptions to fill in. We have no interest in their struggles because the writing is shallow and never zeroes in on much humanity or complexity (though Dunst certainly performs with nasty brio and directness). While the girls are fairly unlikable, the male characters in the film are liars, letches and cheats (mostly in spite of themselves).

The film is also hampered by a sense of an era evoked more by play acting and art direction than felt by any of the characters. The possible exceptions are pros Harden (in an unwritten role) and Stevenson (in an undeveloped role), who simply cannot turn in bad performances, even in dreck of this magnitude. Roberts and her young charges never feel like 1953, and always seem to be playing it with an anachronistic result. This is perhaps because Roberts herself is a distinctly contemporary presence in movies today and seems good at very little anymore other than playing her trademark self (amped up to excellent effect in Erin Brokovich), which usually is more than enough to get by.

Furthermore, most actors tend to look good in the company of better performers, elevated by being part of an accomplished company. But curiously, Roberts seems dull here and is acted off the screen by the accomplished Stevenson and Harden, as well as the estimable trio of Dunst, Stiles and Gyllenhaal (all three of which can be forgiven for a decidedly off day here). Ms. Roberts, once again trading in on her toothy charms and quivering lips, might be the weakest link in the chain, and for a star vehicle that's deadly. One has to wonder what goes through her mind knowing she's the star of the film but standing opposite a detail-rich firecracker like Stevenson who plays every moment of every performance with confident and mannered professionalism.

And though Roberts, with good reason, is the most beloved female star of our era, her post-Oscar gear seems to be to coast. When you see her in a film, listen closely. Do you ever hear any difference in her enunciation or vocal style as per the dictates of her individual characters? Or are you always hearing Roberts' slightly flat, modern cadence? Does she ever really make any interesting or differentiated physical moves that separate any of her characters (with the possible exception of her aggressive physicality in Brockovich)? Or does she usually walk into and out of her scenes flashing that (multi) million-dollar smile?

Some may say this "movie star" style of performing is old Hollywood persona and star quality, and that she's not a pesky "method" actress. Well, that's for sure. And like Tom Cruise in Magnolia, she's proven in Erin Brokovich and other films that she's got deep reserves of emotion and style when she wants to access them. And therein lies the rub: when she wants to.

Roberts is certainly not concerned about the up and comers like Witherspoon and Zellweger, who perform with speed, style and self-awareness. Or how about the brash and numbing work currently on display from Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts? Ditto the best there is today in Roberts age group - Cate Blanchett, who is undeniably the most talented and versatile of her time, and whose laundry list of memorable performances includes so many varied emotional and physical recreations that they merit their own analysis. Even Nicole Kidman, who happens to reside on the mantel of movie star and accomplished actress, digging and plumbing with an awesome versatility of late - should be able to put Roberts out of business.

Don't get me wrong - Julia will always be a winning, warm and immediately cozy and accessible star that we love for her own specific range and good humor, heart and comedy. But in some ways, her characters are beginning to suffer her persona, and the result, once ingratiating, has now turned, well, grating.

Mona Lisa Smile is a watered down, uninvolving film with undeveloped characters and a heavy dose of cliché and formula, heaped with a dollop of unearned sentiment. Not an ounce of the blame for this is on Roberts' back, but her inability of late to inhabit a character rather than smother one is worth pause to consider.