Mona Lisa Smile
The story begins in 1953 as Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) makes her way from L.A. to Massachusetts. She has just been hired on as the new Art History teacher at the very conservative womens liberal arts college Wellesley. Her views are very different from the ones promoted at Wellesley and she is inclined to make a difference, but will it goes as planned? She urges students to choose for themselves and encouraging them to pursue a career not necessarily stereotypical of females. The harder she pushes the more she discovers choices are a little harder to make than she originally thought them to be. Watson soon finds her job being threatened by her own liberal views and a series of life changing choices unfolding in front of her.
Mona Lisa Smile was wonderfully directed by Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and well written by Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal. The flow of the film and its dialogue is quite emotional from beginning to end. The stories of these young women capable of anything, living in a world where they are expected to do little is quite intriguing. Then again that same fact is what drives the films core point of choice. What we are capable of doing and what we choose to do are often far removed from what we are expected to do.
The direction was wonderful, the writing was wonderful, and the acting was exceptional. This film was packed with talent. Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman, Erin Brockovich, Notting Hill) played the powerful role of Katherine Watson with exquisite grace. Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You, Save the Last Dance), Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man), and Maggie Gyllenhaal (Away We Go, The Dark Knight) were all excellent as extremely intelligent young woman attending Wellesley College. They were all very complimentary of each other while playing vastly different characters. The film is definitely worth watching for the acting skills alone.
True blu?
This was a pretty good transfer to 1080p High Definition/ 1.85:1. It could possibly be argued that this was a mediocre transfer, but I found it exceptionally better than the DVD release. There were times that the black wasn’t as black as it should have been at times due to being a little grainy. The coloring was also washed out at times and skin tones were a little weird, but for the most part it was very clean and sharp. I think the coloring had to do with the time of day the scene was shot in or possibly the lighting was a little off. I didn’t find the few flaws to be a distraction from the film. The transfer overall was done nicely. The details while in the dorm rooms and on the campus in general were absolutely beautiful. Most of the décor was incredibly detailed and crisp so the patterns were easily distinguished. I really enjoyed all the outdoor scenes. The snow was very beautiful.
The audio was presented in English, Portuguese, French Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Spanish, Thai 5.1 Dolby Digital. The audio was great. It wasnt exactly set up for surround sound but it still sounded very good. Most of the audio was straight forward and dialogue driven. It was very clean and dramatic. Rachel Portman did a wonderful job on the music. It really fit to the heart of the film and really adds depth to the sound.
Subtitles- English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, Chinese (Traditional & Simplified), Indonesian, Arabic, Dutch
Special Features
-Art Forum
-College Then and Now
-What Women Wanted: 1953
-Music Video- Elton John The Heart of Every Girl
-BD LIVE Enabled
Well, the features are all pretty self explanatory. There was a lot of talk about then and now, but it really was very interesting. The interviews with the cast members and their take on the films significance for women were very enjoyable.
