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Did you know that a woman has choices beyond getting married and having babies? Even in the 1950s? And that having sex isn’t such a bad thing for a gal to do, even in the 1950s? I’m so glad the movies are here to tell me these things. Which involves the general opening of their eyes and blowing of their minds and expanding of their horizons. Katherine has far more than four students, of course, but these gals span the available female clichés of the period well enough to suffice for plot purposes. What would Joe McCarthy think? Katherine is completely unprepared for the array of clichés she encounters in New England, like Wellesley president Jocelyn Carr (Marian Seldes: Hollywood Ending, Town and Country), at whom you just have to laugh the moment she appears onscreen, the way she’s all pinched and mean - she’s the Wicked Witch of Wellesley.Īnd then there are the students: bitchy, uptight society spawn Betty Warren (Kirsten Dunst: Levity, Spider-Man) cool, reserved society spawn Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles: The Bourne Identity, O) Jewish slut Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal: 40 Days and 40 Nights, Secretary) and the adorable “ugly” girl, Constance Baker (Ginnifer Goodwin), whom no man, the general consensus appears to be, could ever, ever love. She has certainly been sleeping with her boyfriend (John Slattery: The Station Agent, Bad Company) back home in California.
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Her Katherine Watson is a free spirit, unmarried, a slob at home - I think she even wears pants in one scene.
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Julia Roberts ( Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Full Frontal) and her hair and her teeth arrive at Wellesley College in 1953 to teach art history.
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Really, just go back and read my review of Samurai and substitute “Julia Roberts” for “Tom Cruise” and “New England women’s college in 1953” for “postimperial 19th- century Japan” and it’s all pretty much the same stuff I have to say: big movie star you can’t forget is a movie star thoroughly unsurprising turns of events nothing at all to addle your brain or expand your horizons, lest you become at all uncomfortable with what the film has to say. It’s like Dead Poets Society - or, really, more like its pale shadow, The Emperor’s Club - meets Far from Heaven (if Nancy Meyers had made it), this Mona Lisa Smile, this female equivalent of The Last Samurai. Who knew the world could be so big, so wonderful, so full of stuff that The Man doesn’t want me to know about, like Jackson Pollack and sex and Paris? Who knew?Ĭlearly, no proper young lady of the 1950s would have been allowed to indulge in this level of sarcasm. I feel like all those oppressed 1950s women must have felt getting their horizons expanded, making this discovery. It’s downright startling, isn’t it? I mean, who knew?īut - and here’s the real surprise - all that cultural hegemony and drilled- in obedience could be overcome under the ministrations of one perfectly perfect, sweetly bohemian teacher who could open their eyes and blow their minds. And everyone’s minds were even more shackled than their floppy bits. All that underwear - girdles and bullet bras and such - was like a prison.
Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is the portrayal of sexual revolution of the times, boasting about affairs with professors and discreetly sharing the fact the school nurse is offering birth control without the college's approval.Have you heard? The 1950s were tyrannically conformist. Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles) is also encouraged by Katherine to pursue a career or more school when she graduates but she firmly stands her ground at the end, insisting she will contribute equally to the world as an educated mother who cares for her children at home.
In the end, she divorces the husband and accepts a spot in law school.
As the film progresses, her marriage deteriorates due to her husband's lack of affection and alleged affairs. She openly rejects Katherine's views throughout most of the film, chiding her for trying to change the women at the school and brazenly skipping class to go on her Honeymoon. Betty Warren (Kirsten Dunst) is a staunch supporter of traditional family and marriage. There are several supporting characters Katherine touches during her stay.