World War II changed America forever in more ways that could have ever been imagined. Women joining the workforce to pick up the slack for the departed soldiers would have a profound effect in women finding independence and wanting more of it. The ripples would be felt for twenty years as changes would be made that were until then not even thought of. In 1953 America was a time ripe for change for women and when Katherine Ann Willis arrives to teach Art History at Wellesley College, she finds the institution drowning in outdated mores. They are highly conservative to her liberal thinking and it’s an amazement that they even offered her a job. While the nation struggles with the fears that accompany a shifting political culture, the powers that be at Wellesley seem to want to re-corset the women who had been the backbone of the World War II workforce just a few years earlier. They do not want change and are almost a finishing school disguised as a college to prepare the women for marriage and a family. She soon finds everything is not as good as they would like it to appear and that many of the girls might want a change too, while others are perfectly happy living the life that seems to be set out for them. A passionate educator, Katherine takes on the establishment and in doing so, deeply affects her students who in turn lead her to alter the course of her life forever.

It’s amazing how a movie can be so mundane that it almost bores you to sleep. This movie was what you would clearly call a “Chick Flick” but that is not always bad but in this case it was horrible and horrendous. I truly struggles to find any point to this movie as it was nothing more than preaching an age that is no longer relevant while not even making and effort to be entertaining or even funny. I think the producers were happy to attach every big name “Chick Flick” actor to the movie and had spent so much money they could not afford to write a screenplay. These kind of movies can play on two levels and when they do not that is clearly saying they do not care to be anything more than a mundane, run of the mill, mass produced bore fest. Julia Roberts has proved she is an exceptional actor in such movies like Erin Brockovich that’s why it completely baffles me to see her take one mediocre role after another. Its not like she is Sylvester Stalone and is incapable of breaking the mold, she is a good actor that’s why movies like these are doubly disappointing. I understand catering to the audiences that love you but that does not mean you have to take on roles that any two-bit actor could walk their way through. Maybe the movie needed some humor to break up the monotony of the movie, as it was not only boring but very unfunny but whatever it was a combination of the movie was truly uninspired, truly unfunny and not in the least bit entertaining.
1.5 stars out of 5