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Pretty as a picture
Mona Lisa Smile (English)
Cast: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst
Director: Mike Newell
JULIA ROBERTS, the lady with a smile almost as famous as Mona Lisa's, plays Katherine Turner, a bohemian art history teacher from sunny California out to teach the stuffy Wellesley Collegians of New England a thing or two.
It is 1953 and a new academic year brings Katherine on collision course with the ultra conservative collegians. Her most formidable foe is the recently married Betty Warren who moves in the rarefied air of super high society. Betty is a firm believer in the "right thing" and feels Katherine's views are subversive to say the least. Matters reach a head when Katherine encourages Betty's best friend, Joan, to apply in Yale Law School.
There is wild child Giselle Levy for whom Katherine is naturally a role model and then there is the shy Connie Baker who sheds her inhibitions all thanks to Kath. The staff includes Nancy Abbey who teaches poise, Bill Dunbar who teaches Italian and has a roving eye and well meaning school nurse Amanda Armstrong who distributes condoms and gets into big trouble for it.
The A-list cast headed by Roberts with Kirsten Dunst playing Betty with icy precision and more than adequate support from Julia Styles (Joan), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Giselle), Marcia Gay Harden (Nancy) and Juliet Stevenson (Amanda - she plays Jules' mum in Bend it Like Beckham) render the movie remarkably easy on the eye. Social historians can do cartwheels of delight at the exquisitely detailed reimaging of the sounds and sights of the period. Unfortunately that is about all one can say about the movie as it is not particularly engrossing.
The only reason for watching the film is if you would like to know how women were perceived in the Fifties or would like to see a bevy of beautiful women in picture perfect settings.
MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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