Sydney Briar is Alive.

An article written by Julia Stiles in 2004

The ultimate message of Mona Lisa Smile may have been concerned with what we now refer to as “having it all”, but it was necessary that characters such as Joan should remain content within their limits.

Otherwise, to show a group of young women in the 1950s so quickly ascribing to a modern sense of empowerment would be historically inaccurate. Critics of such movies have to watch them in the context of the gradual progression of the women’s movement.