![]() ![]() Kirsten Dunst plays the most conservative, who is about to be married when the film opens. The students are a nice range of characters. Most of her students have completely resigned to the idea that they are destined for marriage and nothing more. Outside of class, Roberts faces as large a challenge. ![]() The superiors are unhappy with her course, but some of the students are opened up to the experience. The curriculum and Roberts' superiors are strict in what they want to teach about art, but Roberts veers towards teaching what the textbook will not despite them. She plays the progressive art history teacher, who arrives at Welsley to learn that all of her students have already studied the textbook from cover to cover, and can answer any question that might arise from the class's current syllabus. I think this is one of her better performances, certainly much better than her Oscar winning role in Erin Brockovich. Julia Roberts is an actress about whom I feel nothing I neither like nor dislike her. But it does leave a little more room for characterization, for slightly unexpected outcomes, and it doesn't telegraph its moments quite so rigidly as the Linklater film. You can more or less guess what's going to happen to each character by the end. ![]() No, it's not especially revelatory or surprising. Fortunately, unlike School of Rock, my views on which were accosted last week, I left Mona Lisa Smile mostly satisfied with what I had seen. Another film about a progressive teacher trying to teach her students how to think outside of the box. ![]()
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