Letters to Juliet
Movie Review
"Letters to Juliet"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: C-
Rating: PG
Released: Friday, May 14, 2010
Directed by:
Cast:
The people who write the letters to Juliet in "Letters to Juliet" are lovelorn women who seek the fictional dead teenager's counsel. Never mind that she is fictional, and dead, and a teenager. They don't really expect a response anyway. They just want to pour their hearts out.
Apparently people really do send notes to Juliet in Verona, Italy, and apparently many of those notes really are answered by a squad of volunteers known as Juliet's secretaries. Those aspects of "Letters to Juliet" are based in reality. All the film's other aspects are based in Hollywood fantasy and teen-girl wish-fulfillment, with very little personality.
Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), a budding writer, is in Verona with her fiance, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), who's about to open a restaurant back home in New York. They're here partly as a pre-honeymoon, and partly so Victor can meet with suppliers. This seems like a reasonable arrangement, but the movie still wants us to be upset with Victor when he spends a lot of time meeting with suppliers. That is also the movie's cue that Victor is WRONG for Sophie, lest there be any confusion or tension when she meets someone else.
The someone else she meets is Charlie (Christopher Egan), a stuffy young British man who arrives in Verona fumin' mad at Sophie. You see, Sophie found the tourist spot where people leave letters for Juliet, then discovered the small band of ladies who write replies to the letters that have return addresses. Then Sophie found a 50-year-old letter stuck between some bricks in the Juliet wall, was deputized as an official Segretaria de Giulietta, and wrote a reply to the young woman -- who is now a very old woman -- telling her it's never too late to follow your heart. The old woman, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), who still lives at the same London address she had a half-century ago, has thus come to Verona to find the love she lost as a teenager. Charlie is her grandson, and he's annoyed that Sophie -- an American girl who says words like "awesome," no less! -- had the gall to send his gran on what he's sure will be a wild-goose chase. All this "true love" nonsense is poppycock anyway! Poppycock and balderdash!
Sophie didn't know Claire was going to drop everything and come to Italy, of course. She didn't even know if Claire would get the letter. She certainly didn't suspect the letter would arrive two days after she sent it, and that Claire and Charlie would be in Verona the very next day. The guy Claire is looking for -- an Italian hunk named Lorenzo whom she met in the summer of 1957 -- wasn't even from Verona, so I don't know why Claire showed up here.
For that matter, I don't know why she showed up at all. Why now, after all this time? It's not like she got a letter from Lorenzo. She got a letter from a stranger, acting as secretary for a fictional 16th-century character, telling her to follow her heart. Claire is alarmingly receptive to the power of suggestion.
Anyway, the husband she married instead of Lorenzo has long since died, leaving her free to drag her grandson on a trip to Italy, where she intends to scour the countryside looking for the right Lorenzo. And since Sophie's fiance is busy WORKING (HE'S SO WRONG FOR HER!!), she has time to join the two. Claire is delighted to have the assistance of sweet young Sophie; Charlie is surly and brusque. Humbug! Folderol!
You may have gathered that I object to the alleged friction between Sophie and Charlie. I have used sarcasm to convey this point. It is necessary, in a film like this, for the attractive young male and female leads to be at odds with each other at the start, so that they can warm up to each other over time. Good screenwriters find natural, believable reasons for the two to clash. Lazy screenwriters -- and this screenplay, by Jose Rivera ("The Motorcycle Diaires") and Tim Sullivan, is exceedingly lazy -- give up trying to think of an organic conflict and basically say, "Well, they dislike each other just because." Charlie's objections to Sophie are petty, like he's grasping at straws. He thinks she's too casual, too unsophisticated? That's it? Their bickering is humorless and pointless.
The Italian scenery is awfully beautiful, and Vanessa Redgrave is a welcome addition to nearly anything. But director Gary Winick -- who in seven years fell from indie gem "Tadpole" to studio monstrosity "Bride Wars" -- is sleepwalking through this one, and who can blame him? Everything about the story suggests bland, watered-down pap. Why knock yourself out?
Grade: C-
Rated PG, a little mild profanity
1 hr., 33 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 13 comments
May 14, 2010 at 7:39 am
I saw the trailer for this film, and it successfully conveyed in a couple of minutes the entire story of the film (including the ending). I continue to tell all of my friends that this trailer is the best romance film I have ever seen.
May 14, 2010 at 3:41 pm
When I tagged along on one of my fiance's business trips, we took a couple extra days on our dime so that we could do some fun stuff together. Then, when he was busy with the business part (which, after all, was the reason for the trip in the first place) I took the opportunity to do stuff that I enjoy but he isn't particularly fond of (browsing shops, etc.). I suppose I should have taken this as a sign that he was a terrible person and all wrong for me, but instead I enjoyed the vacation and went ahead and married him as planned. I guess I'm just not a romantic person.
May 15, 2010 at 9:36 am
When I saw the preview for this I leaned over and told my wife that, although there are many chick-flicks that I am willing to watch, I will never, ever, under any circumstances, watch this movie. Never. Ever.
The part where her fiance is busy with business meetings (remember, this trip was a business trip), and she wails, "But we're supposed to be in love! Shouldn't he always want to be with me?" made me embarrassed for teenage girls everywhere.
May 16, 2010 at 1:05 am
Whatever, it is not a "chick-flick"... it is just a nice movie, and if someone doesn't like it that is just their opinion. It was very cute with a good cast, and better than half the crap out their today
May 16, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I'm torn. On the one hand, I will probably enjoy this movie, for the simple reason that I'm a romantic sap who enjoys formulaic, lazily written, poorly done romances. On the other hand, I'd love to respond to Rachel's insistence that it really is a good movie, since she liked it. The implied circular reasoning (it's good because she likes it, she likes it because it's good) is simply too much to pass up.
May 17, 2010 at 2:00 pm
You had me at the first line.
It just so happens, I was seriously considering seeing this movie (I AM sometimes in the mood for this type of movie). But your lead sentence ...
By a total coincidence, I just finished reading Harvard wunderkind Marisha Pessl's first novel, SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS. It's about a teen-aged girl to whom all the adults in the novel (English teachers, high school counselors, even her own father) unburden themselves for sympathy and/or absolution. The adults blather on, pages and pages and pages.
On second thought, this novel is probably not at all like LETTERS TO JULIET. Except for the fact that they are both based on the premise that adults would unburden themselves to a teen-age girl, even a "fictional dead" one.
Hmmm ...
May 19, 2010 at 10:14 am
I had no idea what this movie was about until I read your review. I just knew from the movie posters and the lead actress that it was something that would likely make me want to vomit. Thanks for confirming that fact.
May 20, 2010 at 12:30 am
@Rachel: I am glad that you enjoyed the movie; "different strokes for different folks" and all that.
However, regarding your statement that "it is not a 'chick-flick':" This statement cannot possibly be taken seriously. There is no part of this movie that is not not a chick-flick. Indeed, this movie is the quintessential chick flick. For instance, the movie is driven by: attractive young female lead, improbable scenario where she gets to play matchmaker, rejection of imperfect suitor after emotional turmoil, sexual tension between female lead and attractive male lead, melting ice after shared experiences, knowing (if quirky) motherly figure who dispenses wise and timely advice, and finally realization of love after emotional drama. I have only seen the preview and read the review, and I promise I got everything (or almost everything) right.
Incidentally, calling it a chick-flick isn't necessarily a pejorative. This, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that it is a bad movie. Just that it's audience targeter is pointed, unabashedly with laser-like focus directly at women (many of whom will find it entertaining and endearing). Ok by me, although I don't plan to see it.
May 28, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Even though I will never see this, I'm still happy for Amanda Seyfried.
She played Lily (Kane) in Veronica Mars, and was absolutely fantastic, even though her character died before the show even started (Amanda is featured in flashbacks, dreams, and hallucinations).
She was so good at it (and oddly so, most auditioners didn't want to be Lily since she was dead) that the creators of the show added a lot of extra scenes with her in it, just to get her more screen time.
Anyway, yay for Veronica Mars, boo for terrible romantic comedies/chick flicks.
July 22, 2010 at 7:04 am
Instread of Christopher Egan, they *should* have cast The Rock. And instead of merely being at odds with Sophie, as soon as he first meet her he should have started punching her in the face as hard as he could.
And he should keep punching her in the face for the remainder of the movie. This I would pay to see.
July 30, 2010 at 10:44 am
Part of watching a movie is to take yourself into the improbable and impossible. For some it is Star Wars, or Back to the Future. For others it is the romantically impossible. We all know that love never really happens the way that it does in the movies, there really are no roses, and no balconies, just a lot of yuck and hard stuff, but for an hour and a half every so often we like to assume that it does. My friend pointed out that there are a few problems with the movie - it is never shown what connection there was that brought Victor and Sophie together in the first place, and the relationship between Claire and her first husband Jack is never explained about how good that it was, and it is improbable that you can immediately pick up like that fifty years later, but it's a movie, and movies aren't supposed to be realistic. And, for me a little improbability was worth the amazing scenery, and the fact that there was no inappropriate behavior, no offensive immature language, no violence, and even very little scarcasm. Those aspects alone made the movie for me very worth seeing.
August 9, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Just realized that sending the letter to the same address in England in "Letters to Juliet" isn't so far fetched. As my Family History instructor - Sharon has been helping me with Family History stuff lately, I just realized that I've grown up hearing my whole life about 29 Argyle Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England (where my grandfather grew up), which as of my sister going there in the '80's still existed, and relatives - my grandfather's elderly sisters were still living there:))))
October 6, 2010 at 11:05 pm
The movie letters to Juliet was one of the most amazing romantic movie, I cryed because it was such a happy story to see the two old couple reunited of there past and finally found there soulmate . I enjoyed the movie and than two youngsters fall in love after having not so good relationships in the past. I personaly belive everyone has a soulmate out there weather you found him or her or married but not realy your soulmate or if it is . I know my husband is not my soulmate . My soulmate is out there somewhere maybe diffrent country I think or maybe my bbf that knows me better than anybody . When it's your soulmate you will know . Never settle for less if you know he's not the one for you . It doesn't matter how many years it takes or if you by pass him on the street or maybe if you take a trip somewhere if he's your soulmate you will see him again in life and will be your sign to go for it or if your bbf is everything you wanted and it's gross to date your bbf they maybe the one ... Never give up fallow your heart . I'm not giving up but if I run into my soulmate i'm going for it ... God bless you all