[photo/poster grabbed from IMDB]
Finally, here is one good movie about teachers – totally unlike Bad teacher, since this movie is about Kate Watson, an art teacher who had a very modern outlook and wished to imbue her passion not just for art but in life to her mostly conventional and traditional students of Wellesley College. Katherine soon learns that her students have memorized her entire syllabus through their textbooks so she decides to disregard her lesson plan and teach them in unconventional ways to let them start thinking for themselves. She gets into a conflict with some of her students and their parents not just for her teaching methods but for her beliefs that a girl should strive for more in life than just wait for the right man to marry.
The movie kinda reminded me of another film – Dead Poet’s society but this time the students are all girls including their teacher. But the similarity ends there since their storyline is totally different. Mona Lisa Smile was set in the 50s and it tackled the women’s need to gain more academic freedom and independence. And with a progressive teacher like Watson, they eventually manage to think out of the box, well, most of them. Betty (Kirsten Dunst) is highly conservative and failed to understand why Watson remains unmarried and is pushing her students to think beyond marriage and embark on ‘careers’ of their own. When her marriage fails near the end of the movie, she realizes that marriage isn’t everything and decided to pursue a law degree and enroll in Yale.
Joan (Julie Stiles), another student, is early on seen to have been influenced positively by Watson and inspires her to pursue a degree in Yale law school where she is eventually accepted. But in the end she elopes with her fiancée and instead asks Watson for understanding and to respect her choice. Watson is also shown here with an ex-boyfriend who flies in from California to propose marriage but she declines since she feels she doesn’t love him enough. Then, there’s another Italian teacher whom Watson starts dating but when she discovers that he continues to have affairs with his students and that he lied about being in the war, she breaks up with him.
In the end, the school realizes that Katherine’s course has become popular with students and asks her to return next year but imposes conditions for her to follow. So she decides to leave and explore Europe by herself. This is a good ending since it showed how she is unwilling to compromise her principles. Her students all cry upon seeing her leaving but she still dashes off, leaving them with her graceful Mona Lisa smile. Indeed, this is one movie that would make you smile and believe that there are still wonderful teachers out there like Katherine Watson. In the movie, however, the term Mona Lisa smile is made to refer to how the women in the 50s conspire to hide the lies and frustrations that they have in life - outwardly smiling even if deep inside they are hurting and totally unhappy with their lives.
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