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liked it a lot
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Turned out not to be my tea of cup, sorry about that !
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) an Art Historian from the other side of the tracks gets a plumb job in an American upper class boarding school for rich young women. Despite never having been to Europe or seen Michelangelo's Sistine chapel(not many people have), she heads for Wellesley College idealistic and hopefull for what she might achieve there. Well, its not long before she realizes the 'gals' she is paid to teach, now as much, if not more about art than she does. Or do they? With impeccable manners all the young women are so polished and 'finished' they could all get jobs in Southby's New York talking the talk while waiting for some rich guy to come along and marry them. But Katherine has other ideas, she knows they are much too smart to end up reading romantic novels while hoovering the carpet, so she decides to subvert them into making a choice between a Girdle or a Van Gough; to marry a jerk, or be free and independent? She makes them see that there are two types of riches, the type that money buy's, and the type that money can't buy. Through her unorthodox methods she teaches them to think for themselves and head for Grenwich Village, or do what Mommy wants, serve and support their future husbands. This beautifully mastered film captures the glitzy world of upper class fifties humbug painted with Rubenesque colour and voluptuousness, as the beautifully intelligent young women, living in beautifull architectural surroundings, wearing beautiful clothes, floating elegantly above the hipocracy that lies beneath thier starched petticoats, creates a wonderful piece of choreographed theatre. A comic touch comes when Katherine has just given her girls a set of Van Gogh 'painting by numbers' kits, suggesing they could all become penniless Dutchmen if they put there minds to it, one unfortunate young Lady innocently lets slip her Daddy actually owns a Van Gough original! and recovers her embarrassment, by murmuring, but 'It's only a small one'. To cap it all they are made to stand in front of a Jackson Pollock drip painting and told to remain silent and just 'LOOK'!. They do as she commands seemingly enraptured by it, and there lies the irony, they are staring into an abyss of nothingness, the death of PAINTING!itself.The idea that 50's 'modern art'was a liberating force for good, is deeply questionable, That's the serious bit, on the other side the romantic attachments of the women, including Katherine's, shows how they cope with the lies, betrayals, arranged marriages, dodgy war hero's, back biting, bitching, love and rejection. A chintzy 50's look at how things used to be before Sex&Drugs&R&Roll. A beautifully acted and directed movie this is a very fine and entertaining slice of post war social history.Read full review
Set in 1953, Katherine Watson (Roberts) is a free-spirited graduate of UC Berkeley who accepts a teaching post at Wellesley College, a women-only school where the students are torn between the repressive mores of the time and their longing for intellectual freedom.
I bought this dvd, as the first time i watched it i thought it was a very good film. Now i have it to watch at my own leisure. Excellant film with good reflection on a time where woman thought that there sole purpose was to be a stay at home wife.
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