I’m guessing I might be the only person who’ll tag this chick-flick as ‘historical’, but bar far the most interesting part of the movie for me was the portrait of women in the 1950s. It’s really not that long ago, but my god have times changed! And very VERY definitely for the better!! How utterly ‘eeep!’ watching all these oh-so-clever girlies lining up for housewifery and motherhood, being so ruled by their men O.o

The cast of students includes Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal and a believably bitchy Kirsten Dunst. Alas, away from the student characters and storylines, my interest slipped. Yes, Julia Roberts is fine. And there is a moral in there about trying to change the world whilst changing/not changing yourself. However, I really didn’t see that much growth in the character overall, which I would have expected, and I couldn’t quite click the character into the setting, rather than seeing her floating above it somewhat – she’s so busy being the focus of the movie that she doesn’t flow so well with the rest, perhaps?

While it does completely bring to mind a female Dead Poets Society, it’s really more the Geriatric Painters Club.

The all girl version of Dead Poets Society.