"Mona Lisa Smile," directed by Mike Newell and written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, is a revisionist look at women's liberation. On the one hand it espouses the sort of independent spirit that the movement has encouraged. But it also coddles up to contemporary re-thinking that honors a woman's right to choose domesticity over career. The film wants it both ways, and the approach seems somewhat of a contrivance and accommodation.

The entire set-up seems too forced, although the level of acting makes the film is diverting to watch. Roberts has the most problematical role, as the script thrusts her into the position of being a rebel who really isn't all that rebellious beneath the surface. Her advantage as an actress is that her looks make her always fascinating to watch on screen. Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ginnifer Goodwin as different types of students are all effective. Among the adult characters, Marcia Gay Harden strikes a note of pathos as a sad teacher whose specialty is showing the young women how to comport themselves and teaching speech and elocution. Marian Seldes is authoritative in the role of the demanding college head prizing reputation and tradition. Juliet Stevenson plays the school nurse who upsets the powers that be by helping the students with contraception. Dominic West is appropriately good-looking but smarmy as a professor who habitually sleeps with his students.