Review of Mona Lisa Smile (2003) by Ben H — 04 Aug 2009

Maggie ... *sighs* ... all this talk of marriage, MARRY ME!! Marketing wise, there were a lot of big names in it, so despite that I've always heard that this was a female, girly driven movie, I still viewed the film. I said, "Well there are a lot of big names in this so why not?". However, in 2003 when the film premiered, Julia Roberts was the only "BIG" star, everyone else was still coming up. Kirsten Dunst and Julia Stiles hadn't done their sequeals to their big summer blockbuster films as the respective love interests, and Maggie Gyllenhaal wouldn't have reached global fame until The Dark Knight, so that's probably the producers were able to obtain a cast as such. They're happy now that they did at the time that they did, because now, it probably wouldn't have worked out that way, which was the awesome thing about this movie.

I liked what Julia Robert's character was trying to instill in the girls. The very concept that Jula Stiles was battling with. Everyone was a smart girl, but in 1953 and '54 the mindset of the average woman was to get married and follow the husband's endeavors. Everything was solely based upon the male and the women would just follow, giving up any dreams they may have had, thinking, "well this is the way things are supposed to be, I'm supposed to get married and raise a family anything else is secondary". Very moving.

Wasn't surprised to see a male director for a female driven movie, David Frankel directing "The Devil Wears Prada", Mark Waters (not Tina Fey like you automatically think even though most people know she wrote the screenplay and didn't direct) directing "Mean Girls". Or basically the kind of director you wouldn't expect for a particular type of movie. For instance, Craig Brewer directing "Hustle & Flow" and "Black Snake Moan", or Jim Sheridan directing 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Trying".