The Mona Lisa Smile lost occasions
The movie Mona Lisa Smile gained Julia Roberts a well deserved Scarf Lady award on this site, but unfortunately it will also go down in history as one of the great "lost occasions" movies. Set in 1953 when women of all ages weren't headscarf-shy, it had plenty of potential thanks to a cast including, apart from Julia herself, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Julia Stiles.
Three beautiful, lovely actresses in a movie set in the '50s. We could easily imagine them wrapped Kelly style, or Classic, the sky is the limit...
... But unfortunately, the only actress getting a headscarf scene is Julia Roberts herself (who seems to have a thing for Kelly wraps having worn one in I Love Trouble, The Pelican Brief, the documentary Wild Horses of Mongolia and of course Mona Lisa Smile). Moreover, at about 1 hour and 28 minutes into the movie, the following scene plays: a taxi carries a young woman to a house, she's wearing a classic-tied headscarf. She hurries to the door...
... And seconds later we see the girl is none other than Kirsten Dunst herself, but the scarf is now loose around her neck! How can you have Kirsten Dunst headscarved classic-style and not show her in long, loving close-ups under a good, soft light so that we could see the scarf delicately framing her face, the ends gently fluttering under the knot at her chin?
The other girls, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Julia Stiles, never see a scarf for the whole movie so all we're left with except for Ms Roberts' wrap is a fleeting image of Kirsten in a classic wrap from far away.
Lost occasions, indeed. Other movies set in the era lived up to expectations a little better, starting with Great Balls of Fire and its two leading ladies,
and Winona Ryder
both wearing gorgeous Kelly-style headscarves...
...Or Pleasantville with Joan Allen in her nice and elegant loose classic tie. Had Reese Witherspoon been headwrapped herself, it would have been just perfect.
In A Different Loyalty not only does Sharon Stone wear a number of headscarves, actresses Tamara Hope and Emily VanCamp, who play her teenage daughters, also get to wear classic wraps in one scene.
So
please, please, do not let any more good occasions slip by. Just how would
Far from Heaven have been without
Julianne Moore and her romantic Kelly-style lavender headscarf?
