The very first time I watched Mona Lisa Smile, I was in middle school, and I was not too thrilled to be doing so. This was the era of “Captain America” and “Interstellar,” action movies that kept you on the edge of your seat, and frankly, this one just did not seem to meet the cut. My mom eventually convinced me to sit down and watch “just 15 minutes” with her, leveraging the all star cast, including some of my favorites like Julia Roberts and Ginnifer Goodwin. While I was allowed to leave after I had tried 15 minutes, I found myself glued to the screen. At such an impressionable age, these women were my heroes. They empowered each other, they unconditionally supported each other, they were what I wanted to be. This was the first time I had truly been exposed to a movie that had a cast solely composed of inspiring women, and I fell in love with it.

I was more than a little excited to watch it again, and after another round, it is still one of the most special films I have ever watched. However, I was able to find a few flaws that I did not recognize the first few times, perhaps because the previous times had been for the sole purpose of entertainment. A few of the characters did fall into the typical stereotypes almost to an extreme, and some of the molds that the characters were made to fit did not fit the actresses playing them. While that did not impact my personal viewing enjoyment, it was definitely a popular area of critique for others that watched it.  I found that reading some of the reviews was almost difficult for me, because I could not defend the movie that meant so much to me at such a formative time of my life. To some degree, I do not feel like the critiques I found took into account the main message of the film and put too much of an emphasis on its roll as a timepiece. There is no question that that is an important piece, but I would argue that the underlying messages carry far more weight than the accuracy of the historical context.

It is easy to assume that a movie with such a robust cast would be considered conventional, but I would argue otherwise. The ending is distinctly ambiguous and one of the things that I struggled with as someone who appreciates a “feel good ending.” While the story line is relatively easy to follow, there are a few areas that fall a little bit more in line with a “grey area,” such as how effectively the story line fits the historical time frame it is set in (another one of the major critiques of the film). There is no question that age and the setting of the most recent viewing has allowed me to be more critical of the film, but I would be curious to see how another 8 years would impact my perspective. At the time of the last viewing, these women were noticeably older than me, and they took on the perspective of hero and role model in my eyes. Now that I am older and also in college, I saw them as essentially my equals. I can also more strongly identify with what they are going through and see more of myself in the characters and their relationships. While there is no clear linkage, I still find them to be inspiring, so I will be curious to see how I feel about them further down the road.