Stiles is Joan Brandwyn, Betty's best friend and Katherine's protege, who finds herself torn between marriage and Yale Law School. Gyllenhaal, who almost steals the movie, plays Giselle Levy, the wised-up class rebel who sleeps around and almost loses her bearings. Goodwin's character, Connie Baker, is the house wallflower (and chief victim of Betty's cruelty) who can't believe it when a boy asks her out. Although the four are stock figures, the talented actresses shade their stereotypes enough to lend them as much humanity as the formulaic screenplay (by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal) permits.
As the story follows Katherine through her first year at Wellesley, there are enough reversals to keep you guessing which characters will escape this upscale cuckoo's nest, although it's not very hard to figure out. Although Roberts is playing a grown-up academic, the aura she wafts is as ingenuous as ever. She is still the wide-eyed but feisty people's princess and angel of common sense whose high-beam smile can melt steel.
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