Mona Lisa Smile/Tea With Mussolini/Legends Of The Fall Julia Roberts 2011 DVD

Trio of dramas. ‘Mona Lisa Smile’ (2003) is set in 1953 in Wellesley College, a prestigious women’s college in New England with a student population of young women from respectable, privileged families. On the whole the girls, products of a time when women’s roles were strictly defined, show more interest in marrying well than in achieving intellectual growth or artistic freedom. But when a new art history professor, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), begins teaching at the college, their repressed upbringings and narrow ideas are brought into question. A Berkeley graduate with progressive ideas, Watson sets out to stretch her students intellectually, and challenge their limited outlook on life. In ‘Tea With Mussolini’ (1999), based on the childhood memories of director Franco Zeffirelli, it is Florence, 1934, and a diverse group of women meet each afternoon for tea. There is Lady Hester Ransom (Maggie Smith), widow of the British Ambassador to Italy; Arabella (Judi Dench), a singer and artist; Georgie (Lily Tomlin), an eccentric American archaeologist; Elsa (Cher), also an American, and brash and reckless with it; and finally Mary (Joan Plowright), who has virtually adopted a young Italian boy named Luca (played by Charlie Lucas as a child and Baird Wallace as a teen). As the political climate shifts towards fascism, the ladies must face some inevitable changes, and Luca must face his own responsibilities. Finally, in ‘Legends of the Fall’ (1994), US Cavalry officer Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) takes early retirement after despairing of the Government’s treatment of the Western Tribes. In the remote foothills of the Montana Rockies he builds a ranch where he brings up his three sons. When the youngest son Samuel (Henry Thomas) returns from the city with beautiful fiancee Susannah (Julia Ormond), she attracts the admiration of Alfred and Tristan, his two brothers (Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn). After one of their number is lost in the First World War, the surviving sons return home to rebuild their lives – and fight once more for Susannah’s love.