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Mona Lisa Smile
Directed by	Mike Newell
Produced by	Joe Roth
Starring	Julia Roberts Kirsten Dunst Julia Stiles Maggie Gyllenhaal Ginnifer Goodwin
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	December 19, 2003
Running time	117 min.
Language	English
Budget	$65,000,000
IMDb profile

Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 film that was produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst, and Julia Stiles. The title is a reference to the Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and the song of the same name, originally performed by Nat King Cole, which was covered by Seal for the movie. The film is a loose adaptation of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a novel by Muriel Spark, and the title also references that text.

Contents 1 Box office performance 2 Synopsis 3 Reaction from Wellesley alumnae 4 Cast 5 External links

• Costs (approximate):
  • Production: $65,000,000
  • Marketing: $25,000,000
• Income:
  • United States: $63,860,942
  • Worldwide (excluding US): $76,972,150

Mona Lisa Smile tells the story of a feminist teacher ("Katherine Watson"), who, after graduating from the fictional "Oakland State" University (thought to be a fictionalized University of California, Berkeley), leaves her boyfriend behind in Los Angeles, California in 1953, to teach at Wellesley College, a women's college in the Eastern coast of the United States. The movie portrays Wellesley in the 1950s as being conservative.

Watson tries to open her students' minds to their freedom to do whatever they want with their lives. She encourages her students to believe in themselves, to study to become career professionals, and to improve their economic futures. She utilizes her art teachings as a vehicle to put across her opinion to the young women; that her students needn't conform to stereotypes of women made by society, or the roles made for them by society, as women born to become housewives and mothers. She felt that women could do more things in life than solely adopt the roles of wives and mothers. In one scene of the movie, she shows her students four newspaper ads, and asks them to question what the future will think of the idea that women are born into the roles of wives and mothers.

Watson's ideas and ways of teaching were contrary to methods deemed acceptable by the school's directors; conservative women who believed firmly that Watson should not use her class to express her points of views or befriend students, and should stick only to teaching art. Watson was warned that she could be fired if she continued acting the way she did around students.

Undaunted, Watson becomes stronger in her speeches about feminism and the future of women. She is a firm believer that the outlook of women in society needed to be changed if women were to achieve better futures, and that she needed to instill a spirit of change among her students.

Watson chooses to leave after the one year, but, as she was leaving the campus for the last time, her students run after her car, to show her affection and thank her for her lessons. Many people have noticed the film's similarity to Dead Poets Society even going so far as to refer to it as "the feminist Dead Poets Society" or "Dead Poets Society with girls" [1]. It was released on VHS and DVD on July of 2004.

In a message to Wellesley alumnae concerning the film, Wellesley College president Diana Chapman Walsh expressed some degree of regret concerning the distressed reactions of some Wellesley alumnae to the film. Many alumnae who attended Wellesley during the 1950s felt that the film's portrayal of Wellesley as a stodgy, conservative college was inaccurate.

• Julia Roberts - Katherine Watson

• Kirsten Dunst - Elizabeth "Betty" Warren (Jones)
• Ginnifer Goodwin - Constance "Connie" Baker
• Maggie Gyllenhaal - Giselle Levy
• Marcia Gay Harden - Nancy Abbey
• Julia Stiles - Joan Brandwyn
• Marian Seldes - President Jocelyn Carr
• Juliet Stevenson - Amanda Armstrong
• Dominic West - Bill Dunbar
• John Slattery - Paul Moore
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach- Charlie Stewart
• Topher Grace - Tommy Donegal
• Tori Amos - Wedding Singer
• Lisa Roberts Gillan - Miss Albini

• Mona Lisa Smile at the Internet Movie Database
• Box Office Mojo's movie database entry
• Julia Roberts interview for Mona Lisa Smile