This is a film of frequently pleasant surfaces, but there's no heat deep down inside.
Comment
12/19/03
Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
35
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:146
Fresh:51
Rotten:95
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: Though Mona Lisa Smile espouses the value of breaking barriers, the movie itself is predictable and safe.
Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $63,695,760
Synopsis: Mike Newell's MONA LISA SMILE is a pretty period film that combines a quaint pedagogical tale with a feminist dissection of traditional female roles in 1950s society. Julia Roberts leads an... [More]
Starring: Julia Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles
Director: Mike Newell
Reviews for Mona Lisa Smile
81 - 100 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Feels less like a period piece than it does like one of the contrived and corny melodramas from that era.
12/19/03
A Dead Poets Society for girls, substituting Roberts' luminosity for Robin Williams' mania.
12/19/03
Such a mixed-up child, but not without worthy intentions and glimmers of realized potential -- sorry, but I just can't bring myself to come down too hard.
12/19/03
Entirely predictable, sacrificing all of the interesting characters to focus on Roberts' lame story.
12/19/03
Top CriticAn under-achieving film about how much women can achieve, featuring actors of such potential, seems more than a bit cynical even by Hollywood standards.
12/19/03
A classy, handsome and serviceable entertainment that may not change your life, but could help you appreciate how you came to have it.
12/19/03
This ineffectual, touchy-feely drama - essentially a Lifetime cable-channel movie with better production values and a name cast - is trying to pass itself off as quasi-feminist rhetoric, when it does as much as it possibly can to undercut those messages.
12/19/03
A true rarity, an often-dumb movie about supposedly smart people.
12/19/03
Newell ... has crafted a warm, well-paced movie out of a somewhat wan script.
12/19/03
It offers only a tepid sort of inspiration.
12/19/03
The characters involve us, we sympathize with their dreams and despair of their matrimonial tunnel vision, and at the end we are relieved that we listened to Miss Watson and became the wonderful people who we are today.
12/19/03
Top CriticNewell keeps us guessing about motives; we're on Katherine's side from the start, but we acknowledge that she makes wrong choices over and over.
12/19/03
The template is simply too obvious, leaving little doubt as to how the film will progress and what each character's eventual outcome will be.
12/19/03
The reliable Mike Newell directs Mona Lisa Smile with such assurance that the important moments are never mawkish or dull, and he encourages the women to act with absolute conviction.
12/19/03
This period film merely shuffles along, content to dress up its all-star cast in swell costumes and take big, easy pot shots at the Dark Ages of the 1950s.
12/19/03
There's not much here to actually smile about.
12/19/03
Have you heard? The 1950s were tyrannically conformist.... I mean, who knew?
12/19/03
... claims to celebrate individuality, rule-flouting and nonconformity, yet winds up conforming to every stale regulation in the Hollywood rule book.
12/19/03
The film's social-issue exaggeration, numerous stereotypes, and unfinished sub-plots prove insurmountable for its talented cast.
12/19/03
Latest News for Mona Lisa Smile
February 07, 2007:
A keen sense of how women have swam through a whole lot of repression and pain back then, to pave the way for females to breeze along through in the here and now. 
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