Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 American drama film produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures in collaboration with Red Om Films Productions, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The title is a reference to Mona Lisa, a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and a song of the same name, originally performed by Nat King Cole, which is covered by Seals for the film. Julia Roberts received a record $ 25 million for her performance, the highest ever achieved by an actress at the time.
Video Mona Lisa Smile
Plot
In 1953, Katherine Ann Watson (Julia Roberts), a 30-year-old graduate student in the department of Art History at UCLA and Oakland State, took up the teaching position of "History of Art" at Wellesley College, a women's conservative women's liberal arts. studying in Massachusetts. In his first class, Katherine discovered that her students had memorized the entire textbook and syllabus, so she used the class to introduce them to Modern Art and encouraged discussion on topics like what made good art. Katherine came to know her students and tried to inspire them to achieve more than marriage with qualified young men.
Betty Warren (Kirsten Dunst) is very opinionated and very conservative. Betty does not understand why Katherine is not married and insists that there is a universal standard for fine art. He wrote editorials for college papers, exposing nurse Amanda Armstrong (Juliet Stevenson) as a contraceptive supplier, causing Amanda to be fired; Another editorial attacked Katherine for advocating that women should seek careers rather than be wives and mothers as intended. Betty can not wait to marry Spencer (Jordan Bridges) because their parents have arranged and expect a traditional exception from attending the class as a married woman: Katherine insists she will be marked on her accomplishments and presence, resulting in more conflict.
Connie Baker (Ginnifer Goodwin) starts dating Betty's cousin Charlie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) but Betty persuades her that she only uses him as her parents have arranged for her to marry Deb MacIntyre. Connie ended the relationship, believing Betty's story was true. However, a few weeks later, Connie and Charlie reconnect, with Charlie saying she has decided herself that she will not marry Deb, so she and Connie are back together.
Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles) dreamed of becoming a lawyer and had been listed as pre-law, so Katherine encouraged her to enroll at Yale Law School. She accepted, but decided not to leave because she wanted to start living with her new husband Tommy (Topher Grace). She tells Katherine that choosing to be a wife and mother does not make her less intelligent.
Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has several lovers and liberal views about sex. He admired Katherine for encouraging students to be independent. Giselle gets hostility from Betty, whose conservative view goes against her liberal outlook.
Katherine rejected the proposal from her California girlfriend (John Slattery) because she did not love him enough and started seeing Italian Wellesley professor Bill Dunbar (Dominic West). Bill is interesting and full of stories about Europe and his heroic actions in Italy during the war. She also has relationships with students (including Giselle), and Katherine makes it promise that it will never happen again. The relationship lasted but when Katherine learned that Bill spent the entire war at the Army Languages ​​Center Center in Long Island, she decided to break up with him because she was unreliable. Bill replies that Katherine did not come to Wellesley to help the students find their way, but to help them find their way.
Within six months of marriage Betty's marriage fell apart when Spencer cheated and failed to find amusement with his mother, he visited Katherine. Finally, influenced by it, Betty files for a divorce and looking for an apartment in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. When Ny. Warren confronts Betty for what he's done, he expresses his annoyance with his mother for not supporting him when he asks for help when he finds out about Spencer's affair and that the only person who cares about him is Katherine. Therefore, Betty reveals that she will have her own life, has signed up to Yale Law School and will be united with Giselle.
Katherine's course was so popular that college invited her to return but under certain conditions: she had to follow the syllabus, submit a lesson plan for approval, maintain professional relationships with all faculty members, and not talk to girls about anything other than class. Katherine decided to go to explore Europe. In the final scene, Betty dedicates her latest editorial to Katherine, claiming that her teacher is "an extraordinary woman who lives by example and forces us all to see the world through new eyes." As Katherine's taxi got faster, all of her students followed their bikes and Betty was seen struggling to follow the cab as a last resort to thank Katherine for having changed her life.
Maps Mona Lisa Smile
Cast
Soundtrack
- "Mona Lisa" - Seal (3:11)
- "You Belong to Me" - Tori Amos (3:03)
- "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" - Celine Dion (2:45)
- "The Heart of Every Girl" - Elton John (3:40)
- "Santa Baby" - Macy Gray (3:29)
- "Murder, He Says" - Tori Amos (3:22)
- "BÃÆ' Â ¢ same Mucho" - Chris Isaak (2:46)
- "Secret Love" - ​​Mandy Moore (3:40)
- "What Will I Do" - Alison Krauss (3:12)
- "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" - The Trevor Horn Orchestra (2:26)
- "Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream) - The Trevor Horn Orchestra (2:49)
- "I'm Starting to See the Light" - Kelly Rowland (1:47)
- "I Have a World with a String" - Lisa Stansfield (2:20)
- "Smile" - Barbra Streisand (4:17)
- "Suite" - Rachel Portman (5:33)
Box office
On its first opening weekend, Mona Lisa Smile opened in position # 2 in the US. Box office earned $ 11,528,498 USD behind Lord of the Rings: Return of the King . By the end of its influence, while the film had grossed $ 141,337,989 worldwide, its domestic US gross did not meet the $ 65 million budget, falling short at $ 63,860,942.
Reception
Mona Lisa Smile received negative criticism from film critics. The important aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 34% "rotten" rating based on 153 reviews, and an average rating of 5/10. The important consensus of the website reads, "Although Mona Lisa Smile supports barrier values, the movie itself is predictable and secure." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 40 critics, which shows "mixed or average reviews".
In a general review, Claudia Puig of USA Today writes, "this Dead Poets Society as a girl movie, with no drama and inspiration of interest... even Roberts does not seem convinced. gives a rather bleak performance, as if he were not fully committed to the role... Instead of being an exciting exploration of a much more limited time in our social history, this movie just feels outdated. "The movie deserves a 'C' for simplicity and the attraction is turned off. "Critic Elizabeth M. Tamny of Chicago Reader shared this negative judgment, writing" Part of the problem is that Mona Lisa Smile is Hollywood, and Hollywood not clever to describe the life of the mind... And Julia Roberts does not help - you either like her or not, but somehow it has nothing to do with talent She is not so much a actor as a ship for a serious reaction... The fact is... L it is easier to take a very black-and-white version of the most prominent question of the film - can women bake their cakes and eat them too? - rather than trying to answer it right now. "
Reaction from Wellesley alumni
In a message to Wellesley alumni about the film, Wellesley College president Diana Chapman Walsh expressed regret, noting that many alumni from the 1950s felt that the portrayal of the movie about Wellesley was inaccurate.
Campus controversy
During the filming of the Mona Lisa Smile, the Wellesley College campus entered into a controversy surrounding the supplementary casting of students by using the phrase "not too brown" in a casting call for current Wellesley students, sparking fears that casting directors used the race for discriminates against additional potential. Producers claim that they only emphasize the importance of finding women that reflect the time period.
The controversy spilled over into the local media, and producers considered the compromise to employ minority students willing to act as production assistants. The college issued a press release highlighting the reality of Wellesley in 1953 and defended their decision to allow the film to shoot on campus.
References
External links
- John Walker. (2009). "Mona Lisa Smile (2003) movie review (2009)". artdesigncafe. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
- Julia Roberts interview for Mona Lisa Smile
- Mona Lisa Smile in IMDb
- Mona Lisa Smile in the TCM Film Database
- Mona Lisa Smile in AllMovie
- Mona Lisa Smile in Mojo Box Office
- Mona Lisa Smile in Rotten Tomatoes
- Mona Lisa Smile in Metacritic
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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