Mona Lisa Smile
Overview
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
produced by Revolution Studios
Revolution Studios
Revolution Studios is an American production company founded in 2000 by Joe Roth, a former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and 20th Century Fox. Revolution was formerly a strategic partner of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which distributed and marketed Revolution's films. The company's film division...
and Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
in association with Red Om Films Productions, directed by Mike Newell
Mike Newell (director)
Michael Cormac "Mike" Newell is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television. After the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005, Newell became the third most commercially successful British director in recent years, behind Christopher Nolan...
, written by Lawrence Konner
Lawrence Konner
Lawrence Konner has had a long and distinguished career as an American screenwriter and television writer. In addition, he has produced a number of award winning documentaries.-Career:...
and Mark Rosenthal
Mark Rosenthal
Mark David Rosenthal is an American screenwriter and film director and long-time writing partner of Lawrence Konner.-Education:Mark David Rosenthal was born in Philadelphia...
, and starring Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
, Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress, singer and model. She made her film debut in Oedipus Wrecks, a short film directed by Woody Allen for the anthology New York Stories...
, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Margaret Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal born November 16, 1977) is an American actress. She is the daughter of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She made her screen debut when she began to appear in her father's films...
, and Julia Stiles
Julia Stiles
Julia O'Hara Stiles is an American actress.After beginning her career in small parts in a New York City theatre troupe, she has moved on to leading roles in plays by writers as diverse as William Shakespeare and David Mamet...
. The title is a reference to the Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, and the song of the same name
Mona Lisa (Nat King Cole song)
"Mona Lisa" is a song written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for the Paramount Pictures film Captain Carey, U.S.A. . It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 1950. The arrangement was by Nelson Riddle and the orchestral backing was played by Les Baxter and his Orchestra...
, originally performed by Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, which was covered by Seal
Seal (musician)
Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel , known simply as Seal, is a British soul and R&B singer-songwriter, of Nigerian and Brazilian background. Seal has won numerous music awards throughout his career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male in 1992, four Grammy Awards, and an...
for the movie. Julia Roberts received a record $25 million for her performance—the highest ever earned by an actress.
In 1953, Katherine Ann Watson (Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
), a 30-something grad student from California, takes a position teaching "History of Art" at Wellesley College, a conservative women's
Women's colleges in the United States
Women's colleges in the United States are single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that exclude or limit males from admission. They are often liberal arts colleges...
private
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
liberal arts college
Liberal arts college
A liberal arts college is one with a primary emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences.Students in the liberal arts generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including sciences as well as the traditional...
in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
because she wants to make a difference and influence the next generation of women.
Quotations
I thought that I was headed to a place that would turn out tomorrow's leaders, not their wives.
Look beyond the paint. Let us try to open our minds to a new idea.
I don't think I can go a year without a hot plate.
This is all they're really doing here, isn't it? They're just biding time until SOMEBODY proposes!
A girdle to set you free. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!
[in her last editorial] Not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image.
I've heard her called a quitter for leaving and aimless wanderer. But not all who wander are aimless, especially those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image. I'll never forget you.
Does he pay you... for sex? I mean at the rate you're going, you could make a fortune.