Flak Magazine: Review of Mona Lisa Smile, 01.02.04

In Mona Lisa Smile, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) swoops into a 1950s stuffy northeastern private school from no less than Berkeley — a "bohemian" angel sprinkling the fairy dust of feminism on all the budding Bombecks of Wellesley College. Too bad that Julia Roberts is the least-convincing "bohemian" in movie history, clad in suffocating turtlenecks, perfectly manicured nails and an unparalleled coordination of lipstick, eye shadow and blush — all this despite her assurance to the dean, "I promise not to appear liberal." Don't sweat it, sister. Then again, Wellesley is so conservative that Watson's new television-addicted roommate Nancy (Marcia Gay Harden) exclaims, "I love Lucy, even though she's a communist." In fact, the entire movie paints with these broad strokes, and thus lies the fatal miscalculation: Katherine Watson is set up as an enigmatic, coy "Mona Lisa" figure whose mysterious ways change students' lives, but Julia Roberts plays her like Erin Brockovich, with Wellesley College standing in for PG&E. There's nothing subtle about Julia Roberts, so director Mike Newell and screenwriters Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal resort to ridiculing the image of the '50s woman in the service of a Julia Roberts star vehicle and exploiting modern art to puff up a conventional teacher movie.

The movie poster depicts the four stars (Roberts, Julia Stiles, Kirsten Dunst and Maggie Gyllenhaal) in various degrees of rumination while looking at a painting. This is an allusion to what gender-centered art historians refer to as the feminist "Other," an idea exemplified in nineteenth century post-Impressionist art that depicts the newly modernized woman as yearning for something other than traditional gender roles. The rise of modernism cast off the shackles of the patriarchy, leaving bourgeois women not knowing exactly what they want, but knowing that it isn't the life they have now. The iconic painting of this sub-genre is Mary Cassatt's Woman in Black at the Opera (1880), which shows a resolute woman in the unusual position as the observer, not the observee. She is looking outward, determinedly, but we don't know what she's looking at — which is precisely the point. Cassatt captures women at the dawn of feminism, when it was still unclear what women want, or could actually have. But it's something else — the "Other" — with the gaze of the male (depicted in the painting by a man with binoculars looking at the subject) irrelevant to her own desires.

At the beginning of the movie, each of the three girls have their own suppressed ambitions, and Watson's art class helps bring these into clear view — the looking glass of feminine desire in Cassatt's painting. But these are merely underdeveloped sideplots populated by female stock characters. Betty (Dunst), like her mother, is ready to accept her house in Greenwich at the expense of a philandering husband. Joan (Stiles) wants to go to Yale Law School, but is bound to a boyfriend moving to Philadelphia. Giselle (Gyllenhall), the most intriguing character in the film, is the chain-smoking rebel who sleeps with her hunky Italian professor. The predicatable resolution of these plots provides further evidence that the movie isn't concerned with what the girls want; rather, these perfunctory stories are shaped to reflect Watson's own desires, and the audience is asked to gaze at Julia Roberts like the man in Cassatt's loge. The movie is purportedly feminist, but doesn't want to deal with the complexity of modern woman, settling instead for broad characterizations of what a man might think a liberated woman is. (It should be noted that neither the director nor duo of writers are women.)

In fact, Watson's sex life is the underlying focus of the movie, predominant but barely concealed, like Erin Brockovich's tits. Her new boarding house roommate tells her there's not to be "any hot plates or male visitors", to which Watson replies, "I can't go a year … without a hot plate." When her other roommate, the college's nurse, is fired for secretly providing contraception to the girls, Watson is outraged — not because it's ignorant to think that these girls aren't going to have sex, but she doesn't understand why they shouldn't be having sex. Confusingly, Betty's prudish virginity is somehow symptomatic of womanly submissiveness, and therefore must be liberated for her to realize her true self. More intriguing, there's the customary relationship with another bland Berkeley professor, who ends up sleeping on the couch during his visit. This clues us into Watson's own attraction to the hunky Italian professor, who whisks Watson away to picnics by the creek, like the couples depicted by Seurat and Manet. Considering the purse-lipped scowls all the uptight professors give her in the faculty lounge, this must all be risky business. What if they knew of Watson's rumored affair with William Holden?

Watson has nothing to be ashamed of; only by the oppressive standards like that of Wellesley would she be considered immoral. The offense here is that Mona Lisa Smile equates Watson's perceived promiscuity with her "liberation," as if the coming sexual revolution is the feminist "Other" that the girls are looking for in their lives. There's a subtly misogynist tone to the movie, as if it's trying to equate sexual liberation with the fight for gender equality — as if the enlightened man is to say, "C'mon ladies, we're equals; you're all free to get it on with me as much as you like." The hokey resolution shows that the movie doesn't care about what really happens to the girls themselves, or even knows what would make them happy, just as long as they know that Miss Katherine Watson — liberated woman who will have whatever career she wants and sleep with whomever she wants whenever she wants — has shown them enlightenment through her devotion to teaching art. Thus, the movie's view of modern art takes on oddly sexual overtones; Watson even develops a Freudian interpretation of Rosie the Riveter to drive home the point.

Wellesley's dean criticizes Watson's "curriculum" by recommending "a little less modern art," with her disgusted look indicating that modern art is somehow too erotic, or just plain too liberal. In fact, the movie reduces modern art to desire on canvas. Watson, freshly emboldened by the breaking of her engagement, drags the girls to an unveiling of a Pollock, which she reveals with the drama of a sex-ed teacher opening the textbook to the page with the penis — but we barely see the painting itself, only the awestruck girls. We don't have any idea how what they see affects how they see themselves; we just know it's a break from all that textbook formalism they brought with them the first day of class. Newell only shows us their reactions and asks us to thank Katherine Watson for showing these poor little girls the liberating glory of modern art. Mona Lisa Smile isn't interested in worshipping art; it's interested in worshipping Julia Roberts.

The transparent irony is revealed in laughable terms. Watson's crux exhibit in defense of "modern art" is, of course, Van Gogh. Watson works herself into a righteous fit over his "refusal to conform to formula!" and then dumps "Van Gogh in a Box" on the table — a paint-by-numbers kit by which anyone can reproduce their own Van Gogh. "Look what we've done to him!" Watson extolls. Indeed — but look at what Roberts and the gang have done to Van Gogh: Mona Lisa Smile trades on the complexity of modern art, and the credibility of its artists, to dump reductionist versions of its themes into a Hollywood star vehicle. Julia, you're the one painting by numbers, babe.

— Stephen Himes (stephenhimes@hotmail.com)