Watch Playing Mona Lisa For Free

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Blistering performances.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I saw this movie a couple years ago when I was a videotape operator working the graveyard shift. I was recently reminded of it when I saw it for sale at the checkout line at the grocery store. Weak storyline, funny situations and interesting characters. The only reason to go out of your way to see this flick is that Brooke Langton looks GREAT in it. She looks better in this film than she looked on Melrose Place! Marlo Thomas and Elliot Gould share a funny scene as a middle-aged couple who accidentally take a hit of LSD. By the way, the screenplay is based on a play titled "Two Goldsteins on Acid". Harvey Firestein is great as a love-sick gay man (not a big stretch for him to get into that character!) and the supporting cast does a very good job. Watch it on a rainy Saturday afternoon and you won't be disappointed.

Despite the presence of many "name" actors (Marlo Thomas, Elliot Gould, Harvey Fierstein, etc.) this is an embarrassing lame independent film that feels like a student project rather than a professional film. Apparently aiming to be a slice of life comedy, it falls very flat as most of the jokes are dated and extremely unfunny. The tone is very uneven and the setting -- contemporary San Francisco -- is poorly utilized."Playing Mona Lisa" is about a recent music conservatory grad, Claire Goldstein (Alicia Witt) is dumped by her boyfriend and goes into a tailspin of depression and bad luck. She's surrounded by "crazy" friends and family, including Harvey Fierstein as her gay piano teacher and parents Marlo Thomas and Elliot Gould. I can't give away any spoilers here because there aren't any -- nothing happens in the course of the film and none of Claire's problems or issues are resolved or even dealt with.This is the kind of film that is written by someone who is either WAY out of touch with young people today -- someone well over 50 -- or someone from a foreign culture who has no idea how Americans live or act in the 90s. Claire -- a 21 year old college student -- apparently owns her own ROW HOUSE in SAN FRANCISCO...this would be virtually impossible unless her family were multi-millionaires as San Francisco is one of the most expensive housing markets in the US and Claire does not even have a job. Or maybe I have something with the multi-millionaire thing, because her parents live in a huge Victorian mansion on the banks of the San Francisco bay with views of the Golden Gate Bridge (approx. value: $10 million plus).If it's the filmmakers intent to show the life of a super wealthy princess, that's one thing. But this is supposed to be a story about a down-to-earth, regular girl with normal life problems and a goofy (but normal) family. What wacky planet does the director/screenwriter come from that she does not realize that virtually nobody lives this way? There isn't much of anywhere to go from a premise this completely detached from normality...humor derives from exaggerated real life situations we all can recognize, if you start with an absurd, unworldy premise then there isn't much of any place to go to.There is plenty to laugh at and find humor in amongst young people in the late 20th century...if you had ever MET any of them. None of the 22 yr olds in "Playing Mona Lisa" have body piercings, tattoos, JOBS, college loans, computers or anything else that I associate with young people that age. In fact the whole tone of the movie seems to come from the early or mid-70s. There are a lot of marijuana and drug references, trying to be cool in a desperate way, and an excruciating scene where Claire's stuffy middle class parents "accidentally" get high....as if the parents of 20-something kids would not themselves have grown up in the early of Woodstock and pot and rock music!!!!This film has nothing whatever to say about contemporary young women, or the choices/problems that they face in life. It doesn't even have anything to say about the struggle that a classical music student would face in transitioning from music conservatory to professional career in one of the most ruthless and competitive fields of music.The only remotely interesting thing to comment on here is that Alicia Witt -- who has no gift for comedy or dialogue and utterly fails to carry the film or charm us -- appears to actually be playing her own piano pieces. This is refreshing compared to the many other lame films out there where a talentless actor "fakes" playing. However, if she was selected for the role because of this talent, it was still a mistake. It takes some charisma and personality to head a film, and Ms. Witt is a blank slate.This is a film to be avoided, even as a rental. Complete waste of your time.

This is obviously a chick flick and therefore not aimed at me but, even so, I cannot see that this movie serves any point whatsoever. Alicia Witt is charming but that is NOT all that a real film requires. This is a "comedy" created by Hollywood hacks who do not really respect comedy. "Let's have a normal heroine and throw ha ha hilarious eccentric characters all around her." That's not how you create comedy, it's how contemptuous people slough junk off onto us. If you enjoyed this film, you must laugh uproariously when you see people around you fall into mud puddles. I sure wish Hollywood would quit trying to market this sort of thing as comedy and come up with some new term for it. My suggestion would be "lamedy" but I don't suppose they'd go for that. While taking a walk, a little kid in the park said, "Poop," to me. If you find that hilarious, then you'll enjoy this flick.

The movie itself is what it is. A tolerable, at times engaging chick-flick with good writing and a good balance of storylines.As someone who's played piano most of my life, I usually roll my eyes at Hollywood's depiction of performing pianists. Usually, the pianist sways one way when they should sway the other, they gesticulate extravagently for no reason reflected in the music, or they rotate their arms back and forth like they're churning butter when they're supposed to be playing the piano.Most of Alicia Witt's playing was believable, presumably because she was actually and in fact playing (she was classically trained and is credited as the performer in the film's credits).The only exception I noticed: the scene where she's playing the Chopin G minor Ballade while talking in a full, articulate voice to her piano instructor (Harvey Fierstein). Not impossible, but not typical either for a pianist to whip through a pretty demanding piece such as that Chopin and carry on a full-throated conversation at the same time. To me it looked like a Victor Borge routine for just a moment.Other then that, this film gets high marks from me for its believable piano playing. As for the rest, well, let's just say I wouldn't even be commenting on this film were it not for the goofy scene with the G Minor Ballade.