Girls can want more than to just have fun...or domestic bliss...in what some are mistaking as a female Dead Poet's Society. However, despite a few flaws, America's sweetheart's star package, Mona Lisa Smile is worthy of more credit than just a melodramatic carbon copy.

The queen of chick flicks, Julia Roberts stars as first year professor, Katherine Watson. Set in the 1953-54 school year, Katherine follows her dream to teach art history at Wellesley College, a conservative girls college located in what her Californian boyfriend calls an "icebox." With her fresh from the west progressive attitude, Katherine must take on a double-edged sword, higher education for women, in a time when most of America was just fine with females staying in the home. Hoping to offer her students a new perspective, it's not more than a little predictable that our heroine eventually faces her adversaries with both wit and charm. One such obstacle for Katherine is Betty Warren, played by Kirsten Dunst, in a startlingly unlikable role.

Betty is the first to marry, in the central group of seniors which the film focuses on. The daughter of a high society control-freak mother, at first it seems that Betty is just a bitch whose apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. She never hesitates to give her new professor hell (on several occasions, exhibiting her "special privileges" as a married student to ditch classes) and she bounces her insecurities off of the other girls, Joan (Julia Stiles), Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Connie (Ginnifer Goodwin). These characters are much more likable, but each in their own way. For instance, Joan is in love with a Harvard student, Tommy Donegal, played by Topher Grace ("That