Mona Lisa Smile
by Mike Newell
Our Price: $4.09
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.29 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay HardenDirector: Mike Newell
Producer: Deborah Schindler
Producer: Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas
Producer: Joe Roth
Producer: Paul Schiff
Producer: Richard Baratta
Writer: Lawrence Konner
Writer: Mark Rosenthal
DVD: Region Code 2
Audio: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), Dolby Digital 5.1; Arabic (Subtitled); Bulgarian (Subtitled); Croatian (Subtitled); Dutch (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); Hindi (Subtitled); Hungarian (Subtitled); Icelandic (Subtitled); Greek (Subtitled); Romanian (Subtitled); Serbian (Subtitled); Slovene (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian (Original Language); Hungarian (Dubbed)
Format: PAL
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD Reviews of Mona Lisa Smile
DVD Review: THOSE NINETEEN FIFTIES WOMEN...
Summary: 5 Stars
My daughter, who had seen this film and loved it, suggested that we watch it together. I agreed and was very glad I did so, as I really enjoyed this bittersweet film. It is a well-acted, well-directed effort about a free-thinking art history professor, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), who in the nineteen fifties, lacking Ivy League credentials, manages, through a twist of fate, to get a berth as a professor at traditional and conservative Wellesley College. It is here that she hopes to find herself instructing the leaders of tomorrow.
What she finds, instead, is a group of highly intelligent, young women, who are more interested in marrying the leaders of tomorrow than in being leaders themselves. Ms. Watson succeeds in opening the minds of her students to the possibilities and choices life can offer and learns a little about such possibilities and choices herself. She also finds friendship and romance while at Wellesley College. The film also focuses on four of her students, all of whom are given stellar portrayals by the young actresses playing them.
Elizabeth "Betty" Warren (Kirsten Dunst) is the quintessential fifties girl, obsessed with getting her Mrs. before getting her BA. She later discovers that one should be careful for what one wishes. She is also a nasty piece of work who doesn't care what misery for others her poison pen invectives and barbed comments cause. She eventually gets her comeuppance in a way that she never envisioned. Her best friend, Joan Brandwyn (Julia Styles), is a beautiful, highly intelligent, young woman who harbors a secret wish to become a lawyer. Yet, at the same time, she desperately wants to become a wife and mother. Hers is a decision between choices. She ultimately makes a choice that causes Ms. Watson some consternation but with which she is happy. Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a young Jewish miss in a WASP environment who finds herself having short term affairs with her hunky professor and with an older, married man. Connie Baker (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a pleasingly plump, pretty cellist who finds true love, only to find it derailed by the ever evil Betty.
Marcia Gay Harden is brilliant in the supporting role of Nancy Abbey, Wellesley College's professor of etiquette and deportment, who, one discovers, has not always followed her own staid advice. Noted British actress, Juliet Stevenson, is outstanding in the small role of Amanda Armstrong, the college nurse and closet lesbian, who is still mourning the loss of her companion of many years. Marian Seldes is perfectly cast as President Jocelyn Carr, whose role at the college seems to be that of keeping the well-heeled alumni and trustees of Wellesley College happy with the status quo. Donna Mitchell turns in a stunning performance as Betty's self-absorbed mother, a woman who is a slave to the expected and puts appearances before her daughter's happiness. Julia Roberts is luminous as the role of Katherine Watson, infusing it with an intelligence and natural warmth that radiates off the screen. Though she has a little bit too contemporary an edge, she still manages to carry the day in the role of the forward thinking professor with the Mona Lisa smile.
All in all, this is a wonderful, highly enjoyable film in which the social mores and style of the nineteen fifties are well depicted.
Description of Mona Lisa Smile
Julia Roberts's command of the screen is so effortless, it's easy for moviegoers to take her for granted--but we shouldn't. Mona Lisa Smile--about a noncomformist teacher at a private school who encourages students to pursue their individuality--is pretty much an all-girls version of Dead Poets Society that mixes '50s fashions with '70s feminist thought. However, its lack of ambition doesn't diminish the talent that's gone into it: The writing and directing are well-honed and skillful; the actors--a talent-studded cast featuring Marcia Gay Harden, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Stiles, and Juliet Stevenson--are uniformly excellent. But without question, Mona Lisa Smile rides on Roberts's shoulders and she carries it with ease. She's possibly the only contemporary actor who simply owns a movie the way Bette Davis, Jean Arthur, or Claudette Colbert once did, radiating a engaging mix of intelligence, drive, and emotional warmth that cannot be matched. --Bret FetzerBestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Pretty Woman (15th Anniversary Special Edition)Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2005-08-30; DVD
Best price: $8.97
Price in other shops:
Dead Poets SocietyBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 1998-11-10; DVD
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
Mystic PizzaROBERTS,JULIA; Release date: 2001-01-09; DVD
Best price: $6.80
Price in other shops:
My Best Friend's Wedding (Special Edition)SONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2001-08-28; DVD
Best price: $5.96
Price in other shops:
Notting Hill (Collector's Edition)Universal Studios; Release date: 1999-11-09; DVD
Best price: $5.07
Price in other shops:
Runaway Bride (Widescreen Edition)ROBERTS,JULIA; Release date: 2000-01-25; Published: 2000-01-01; DVD
Best price: $1.11
Price in other shops:
DuplicityOWEN,CLIVE; Release date: 2009-08-25; DVD
Best price: $2.48
Price in other shops:
StepmomSony; Release date: 1999-04-27; DVD
Best price: $4.46
Price in other shops:
Something to Talk AboutWHV; Release date: 2010-11-09; DVD
Best price: $3.39
Price in other shops:
Eat Pray LoveSON; Release date: 2010-11-23; DVD
Best price: $6.88
Price in other shops: