Retro
films about the 1950s attempt to locate a defining moment
when
rigid traditions were broken, when everyone dressed nicely,
spoke
correctly, and women and minorities were in their place--a
neoconservative's utopia. The first was Dead Poets
Society (1989).
The
second was Pleasantville (1998). The third was Far
From Heaven (2002).
This year's Mona Lisa Smile is the fourth. The first exposed
anti-Semitism, which is far from dead. The second dealt with
family
values, the third with crossing color and heterosexual lines.
Mona
Lisa Smile is about women's liberation. Among the four, Mona
Lisa
Smile is the best at recalling popular songs and television
shows of
the '50s. Katherine Watson (played by Julia Roberts) is hired
from
Oakland State College in California to teach art history
at the
all-female elite Wellesley College outside Boston, dubbed
the "most
conservative college" in the United States. (The filming
locations
are
Wellesley, Columbia and Yale.) A liberated woman, when she
arrives in
September 1953 she encounters a campus with long traditions,
extremely
intelligent but snobbish students who have memorized the
textbook
before the first day of class, and faculty who are cowed
into rigid
rules. Gossip abounds, with students circulating stories
about their
boyfriends, and there is a race to marry a scion before graduation;
as
Watson puts it, Wellesley is really a "finishing school" for
women
who
will support their rich husbands by providing well-bred appearances.
Much of the gossip ends up in the school newspaper, where
Betty
Warren
(played by Kirsten Dunst) reports deviations from the norms;
her
voiceovers convey her later unpublished opinions. Italian
language
professor Bill Dunbar (played by Dominic West), rumored to
be
sleeping
with his students, lets them believe that he is a war hero
who
learned
Italian on the battlefront in World War II, but his indiscretions
are
kept secret. The hypocrisy is best epitomized by the smile
on
Leonardo
da Vinci's Mona Lisa, which portrays something unhappy behind
the
mask
(though there is no mention in the film, despite Watson's
efforts to
open the minds of students to breakthroughs in art, of the
theory
that
Leonardo was painting a self-portrait). The first sign of
rebellion
comes when school nurse Amanda Armstrong (played by Juliet
Stevenson),
secretly distributes condoms, for which she is fired soon
after Betty
pens an article in the school newspaper that outs her practice
of
giving out freebies (though, surprisingly, not for being
a Lesbian).
Nevertheless, the identity of students who eagerly accept
the condoms
is editorially protected. Since Watson arrives at Wellesley
with the
intention of enlightening students, she decides to deviate
from
prescribed lesson plans, thus forcing intelligent students
to think.
Only a few immediately accept the challenge. The first is
Giselle
Levy
(played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), who claims to be having sex
with
Dunbar. At Watson's urging, Joan Bradwyn (played by Julia
Stiles)
applies and is accepted in one of the five positions reserved
for
women at Yale Law School, one of which is informally set
aside for a
Wellesley graduate. (As late as 1959, the incoming class
had only
three women.) However, newlywed Betty student threatens Watson
of
"consequences" if she receives failing grades for
not attending class
while organizing her own wedding and furnishing her new house.
She
spoils the chances of a classmate for a husband, and she
continues to
badmouth other students. Much happens during the year, thanks
to
Watson's eventual popularity for trying to move the college
into the
1960s. Wellesley's President Jocelyn Carr (played by Marian
Seldes)
cleverly invites Watson to return in the following academic
year,
provided that she conforms, a most unlikely outcome. Directed
by Mike
Newell, Mona Lisa Smile ends with some surprises, such as
Betty's
discovery that her husband's true love is in New York, but
filmviewers
know that the '60s ultimately triumphs even if the movie
shows that
the norms of the '50s still prevail. Nevertheless, later
Wellesley
graduates Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky are said to
have
inspired the saga. MH
I
want to comment on this film
