Advantages: Everything Disadvantages: None that I could see
Like most films I read about on Ciao, I've never seen them, or probably only seen the trailers passing by on the TV. MonaLisa Smile was something I didn't get a chance to see but the trailers. So I decided to buy it, watch it and do a review on it...so here it is....
MONALISA SMILE
***ACTORS/ACTRESSES***
Julia Roberts: Runaway Bride, Erin Brockovich
Julia Stiles: Save The Last Dance, 10 Things I Hate About You
Kirsten Dunst: Spiderman, Spiderman 2
Maggie Gyllenhaal: 40 Days and 40 Nights, Strip Search
Ginnifer Goodwin: Walk The Line, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton
***CHARACTERS***
Katherine Watson
Played by actress Julia Roberts. Katherine is an idealistic art teacher who wants more than anything to teach at Wellesley college for girls. Not the typical teacher, her methods and ideas are unorthodox ...
Advantages: Great fiction about passion & power struggles in 15th century Florence. Disadvantages: Historical accuracy of the main character?
*** The Author ***
Jeanne Kalogridis was born in Florida in 1954, has an MA in linguistics and now lives on the USA?s west coast. This book was written in between caring for her husband while he was having chemotherapy, and she praises him for his good humour during the treatment and her writing of the novel.
This book has been published as ?I MonaLisa? is the USA, but the title was changed to ?Painting MonaLisa? for the UK market. I don?t think they should have changed the title, as the book spends little time telling us of the MonaLisa painting, but the lady, known as MonaLisa, is the main character of the story.
This is the first book by this author that I have read. Having enjoyed it, I will now look out for her other published historical novels, which are The Borgia Bride and The Burning Times. A brand new novel ...
Advantages: Looks great, nostalgic look at a narrow section of US life Disadvantages: Period details may not be that accurate, very soppy
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Kirsten Dunst, (as seen in "Spiderman"), is the completely assured, ultra Republican bitchy one, Betty, whose brilliant mind which looks set to be wasted even more than her classmates.
Maggie Gyllenhaal (brilliant in "The Secretary", which although it was released first, was made later than "MonaLisa Smile") - plays Giselle, a wild child, beautiful but almost in a tomboy kind of way.
Julia Stiles ("10 things I hate about you", "Bourne Identity") - plays Joan, who looks like she could go off and have a career in law.
Juliet Stevenson appears in the far-too-small role of Amanda Armstrong, a radical teacher, well, I mean - she wears trousers, even!
Dominic West plays Bill Dunbar, an Italian teacher at the same college. His role really is the token male role, and he's obviously in there for some kind of interest but it's very lukewarm. Not ...
