Smile Mona Lisa Smile?

In a world that told them how to live, she taught them how to think.


Watching Mona Lisa Smile I could not stop thinking that it is the female version of Dead Poet Society. What is with the title anyway? I can’t seem to connect the title with the movie at all. Casting those thoughts aside, the movie really has something worth watching. The message it tried to portray is really straight forward, DO NOT SELL YOURSELF SHORT.

Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) encouraged her students to strive for a more enlightened future then to conform and settle to the rigidly defined women’s roles of that era. It is not easy to change one’s perspective of life, especially when the rest of the community stands true to that kind of thinking. I just could not understand why the females of that era study so hard just to let it all go to waste and marry off. From the first day of Watson’s class we can see that the students are book smart, the whole class actually memorized the whole syllabus or so it seems. By the students being there and studying so hard, we would had thought that they want to change their lifestyle to something better, in other words continue to study in the university and actually be somebody in the future. Sad to say, the women in Wellesley College main concern is not where they can go and further their studies but who they are going to get married to. Of course, females being females we do worry about who we finally settle down with, but to let go of all that potential and just settle as a mere homemaker is a total waste of energy and life.

Ok, enough with the feminism babble; let look at the movie in a teacher’s point of view. One glaring issue is that teachers must be ready in all circumstances. In the movie, the students actually studied the whole syllabus before the semester started, thus the teacher need not to teach them each and everything from the book, and basically the teacher ran out of material to teach the student. Luckily in the story, the teacher was creative enough using other resources to teach the same topic or theory; the students had not learnt or read about the subject item but had learnt about the concept of the whole theory thus their minds are not tied to follow what others think but to come up with their own interpretations of the subject item. A teacher always needs to be creative and prepared for all circumstances. Another issue that I can see from this movie is the teacher’s role as a motivator and thought provoker. Teachers should be aware of their student’s capabilities and be the initiator and motivator for the student to strive towards what they can achieve and be better than they already are.

Mona Lisa Smile is worth watching if you are interested in chick/teacher-flick. I cannot say this movie was good, but I enjoyed it.


~ Not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image.~
Betty Warren