May 28, 2015
When I coached high school debate, I formed relationships with students akin to family. It is impossible to spend weekend after weekend and days and evenings and days and evenings with these kiddos and not develop a bond that runs deep. I am grateful to count many former students among my most precious friends.
Graduation was always a challenge for me: I had to figure out how to stay when my seniors left. Every May my heart cracked.
Eventually, of course, I just couldn't stay.
It is no surprise, then, that one of the most cathartic scenes for me in all cinema is the last moment in "Mona Lisa Smile." Julia Roberts portrays Katherine Watson, an art teacher at Wellesley College in the 1950s. She encourages her students to examine the mores of the time as they study art beyond the standard fare. Most importantly, she develops deep connection with these gifted young ladies.
Her teachings are considered a tad subversive, and although she is invited back for a second year, her return is contingent on a much more restricted curriculum and the promise of more impersonal relationships with students. She decides to leave on her own terms rather than stay and deliver a caveat to her approach.
As she leaves, a host of her students follow her cab on bicycles, including (first and foremost) the student who was the catalyst for her demise who has since realized the value of this teacher and friend. Their devotion is moving, but her reaction is what cripples me every time I watch. She is surprised, thrilled and touched. In the final moment before the screen fades to the film's end, she wipes away tears and, when there is nothing else to say or do, she laughs.
I am no Julia Roberts or a fictional art teacher in the Ivy League, but what her character experiences in that moment rings remarkably true. As I watch, I think, "that's what the goodbye feels like. How did they know?"
See it here:
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