‘Letters’ over the top, but not passionate enough
The trailers for
”
Letters to Juliet
”
promised an over-the-top, romantic love story and in some ways
that is what director Gary Winick delivered. But in many other ways
he failed to make the most of the best actors in the film,
including six-time Oscar nominee
– and one time winner – Vanessa Redgrave and
internationally-acclaimed actor Gael Garcia Bernal. Their talent is
almost wasted as their characters are just secondary to the central
plot of the film.
‘Letters’ over the top, but not passionate enough
The trailers for “Letters to Juliet” promised an over-the-top, romantic love story and in some ways that is what director Gary Winick delivered. But in many other ways he failed to make the most of the best actors in the film, including six-time Oscar nominee – and one time winner – Vanessa Redgrave and internationally-acclaimed actor Gael Garcia Bernal. Their talent is almost wasted as their characters are just secondary to the central plot of the film.
I’ll admit, I do have a soft spot for Amanda Seyfried, with her bright, round eyes and her ability to look miserable without saying a word – perhaps a task she learned from playing a snotty teenager in the movie “Mean Girls” or the daughter of polygamists on HBO’s “Big Love.” In the film, she plays Sophie, a fact checker for “The New Yorker” magazine. It’s a job that really exists and Sophie is charged with basically going line by line through submitted manuscripts to verify that what the authors have written is accurate. But her real passion is writing, and she keeps begging one of the editors for a chance to do just that. And maybe that’s the other reason I have a soft spot for Seyfried’s character Sophie – because writing for “The New Yorker” is my dream job.
Her career goals are put on hold as she and her husband-to-be Victor (Bernal) plan a pre-honeymoon in Verona, Italy. The paltry explanation for the pre-honeymoon is that Victor is on the verge of opening up a restaurant in New York City so they won’t have time to go on the honeymoon after the wedding. As soon as they arrive in Italy, however, Sophie’s dreams of sight-seeing and spending time with her fiance are dashed as he reveals other plans. He really wants to use the time to visit with suppliers for his restaurant, something in which Sophie has little interest in doing on vacation.
Very early on most viewers will start to be irritated with Victor for his insincere insistence that he “feels horrible” for all the time that he has to leave Sophie for work-related tasks. And they may be just as irritated with Sophie for letting him get away with it. The screenwriters, Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan, as well as director Winick fail Bernal by making him a caricature of a bad boyfriend rather than using the character to add a little complexity to the story.
Victor, however, as any viewer of romantic comedies can guess, isn’t really that important to the story. Sophie’s real adventure in Italy starts when she visits – alone – the home of Juliet of Verona, from the Shakespeare play “Romeo and Juliet.” Heartbroken women from all over the world write letters to the fictional character asking for advice and tape them up on a wall. At the end of the day, Sophie discovers that a group of women collect the letters and write back. They are called the secretaries of Juliet. Sophie sees the story as a perfect one to pitch to “The New Yorker.”
And things get even better when she finds a 50-year-old letter that has been lost behind a brick all these years. It is from a girl who says she decided not to stay with her Italian love and instead to return to her family in London. The two had set up a rendezvous time and place, but Claire stands him up. Her letter has gone unanswered all these years – until Sophie decides to write her back.
The director plays fast and loose with the time frame in the movie, but whether it’s been a few days or a few weeks, Claire (Redgrave) shows up in Italy with her handsome grandson in tow. Claire has decided that she wants to find her lost love, Lorenzo.
Her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan) is upset about the fanciful trip, but came along anyway as moral support for his grandmother. He is angry at Sophie for reignited his grandmother’s hope and even more upset when Sophie finagles her way into accompanying them as they search the Tuscan countryside for a man who may not even be alive or may not remember Claire anymore. Sophie doesn’t have to worry about Victor, as he has already left her to attend a wine auction in some other part of the country.
Sophie’s fact-checking skills come in handy as they select a target region and eliminate any Lorenzos of the wrong age. As in most romantic comedies, Charlie and Sophie don’t seem to like each other much. They are irritable and seem to be about as mismatched as a pair could be. But as their journey continues, they begin to discover some of the things they have in common, including their desire to see Claire happy.
Redgrave’s character is mild throughout and underplayed. In fact, her Claire seems hardly like a woman who is on the adventure of a lifetime in search of love. She is subdued and has few lines in the movie. It would have been nice to see more from her.
In all, the movie is predictable, down to a really cheesy balcony scene at the end that really put it over the top.
Melissa Flores can be reached at
mf*****@pi**********.com
. She writes a blog at http://melissa-movielines.blogspot.com.
