Mona Lisa Smile explores the life of progressive teacher Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) as she starts her new job as an art history teacher in a 1950s girls college. The film hangs on the ensuing clash between her own liberal views of what women should be, and what she sees as the stale academia and social convention which limits the potential of the students she teaches.
The film falls flat on several counts, one of which is the character Watson. There is no attempt to hide her faults but there simply isn’t enough charisma in Roberts’ performance to convince us that we can ignore them.
The result is that the denouement of the film is nowhere near as hopeful or emotional as it should be, and the overall message is exposed as weak. This story has been done before, and better
