Hey folks, Harry here... I was talking with Capone about this film earlier today. He'd seen it, but hasn't worked up a review yet, but commented how it's a throw-back to the pre-quality film Julia Roberts that Soderbergh has brought out of her. Though, frankly the below comments about it being Dead Poets Society 2... well I liked Dead Poets Society, and I'm not so sure I need to see that exact tact again. Here ya go...
Mona Lisa Smile! Mona Lisa Yawn more like.....
Hi Harry,
Like so many others this is the first time I've written to you but having looked through your site no one seems to have written about a final version of this movie.
I saw this movie at an Academy screening in London I was taken to and expected a lot given the cast and director. I mean Mike Newell directing Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, Kirsten Dunst and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Come on!
The story is really simple. Julia Roberts plays a teacher at a college for women in 1953, and helps the students through ups and downs while learning some lessons herself. Substituting art for poetry, a male teacher and students for girls someone decided it was time for an all girl version of Dead Poets Society. Believe me this sums up the movie in a nutshell.
I don't think much could have prepared me for how bad this film is. Actually, bad is perhaps too strong a word for a film that fails to entice any emotion whatsoever. It's simply dull, unexciting and uneventful. Yes, the long shadow of Dead Poets hangs over this movie and it never sets its own foot in the sun! The only performances that stand out as being worth mentioning at all are Kirsten Dunst (who plays mean extremely well) ,Maggie Gyllenhaal and Juliet Stevenson in an all-too-brief role.
If it wasn't for the calibre of the director and cast this would have simply been a dull TV movie. As it stands it'll bore audiences in cinemas around the world.
If you think I'm being too harsh then temper your expectations in the knowledge that this movie was written by two writers responsible for such "classics" as Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, The Beverly Hillbillies and Mercury Rising!!
Tarik
