Movie Review Letters to Juliet

Letters to Juliette
This is a new romance, solidly in the “chick Flick” category. It stars Amanda Seyfried as Sophie, who is a fact-checker—and fledgling writer—working for the New Yorker, and engaged to a self-absorbed chef, who is in turn obsessed with opening his new restaurant in NY city. They decide to take a ‘pre-honeymoon’ (a bizarre concept) to Italy, a journey which turns into a thinly disguised business trip for future-hubby. This leaves Sophie, our heroine, with a lot of time on her hands.
She visits a tourist hot-spot in Verona, called, I think, Juliette’s House. It is a small courtyard where women from around the world go to write notes and letters to Juliette—apparently some kind of patron saint for the broken-hearted— about husbands and boyfriends, and recalcitrant and disappointing men in general, and leave them posted on an ancient wall. Sophie discovers that the city maintains a bevy of women who work full-time answering the letters, as Juliette. Then, by chance, she discovers a letter they have overlooked—for the last fifty years. She answers that letter, and in so doing, draws the author, Claudia, back to Verona to find her lost love. She is sixty-five now, and a widow. Accompanied by her grandson, a tight-sphinctered, proper, and thoroughly unpleasant Brit, Claudia and Sophie set out to find Lorenzo, her lost love. Claudia is played by Vanessa Redgrave, still beautiful, and brilliant, after all these years.
The body of the movie revolves around the humorous and poignant search for Lorenzo, while Sophie and Charlie, Claudia’s grandson, go from prickly antagonism to reluctant attraction. Naturally, just as they’ve given up the search, they find Lorenzo by chance, and old love is rekindled, while new love—ill-timed and inconvenient—is blossoming as well.
I wasn’t really liking this one for about the first third of the movie. But three things swayed me in the end. One, the absolutely beautiful locations and scenery, all shot in Italy, where light is supernatural and architecture sublime. Second, the writing rises above the formulaic nature of the story. After all, how many ways are there for people to fall into—and out of—love? And third, the casting and acting rise above the merely adequate and enter the realm of surpassing entertainment.
Lorenzo (the real Lorenzo) is played by Franco Nero. For those of you who are not familiar with that name, let me refresh your memory. The last time Redgrave and he worked together was in 1967, when she played Lady Guinevere and he played Sir Lancelot in the musical, “Camelot,” which also starred Richard Harris as King Arthur. Maybe you don’t like musicals, which makes you a philistine, but this is one of the best of all time—maybe my favorite. The two of them glow with chemistry in that movie, and it is still there in this new one.
I cannot reveal the ending, but suffice it to say, there will be tears of relieved joy. Amanda Seyfried has a noticeable presence on screen. (She plays the about-to married-daughter of three possible father’s in that peon to ABBA, Mama Mia!) Not to mention the biggest eyes since Leslie Ann Warren. Her obsessed fiancé makes himself intolerable in a fine job of supporting actor, while Charlie, played by Christopher Egan, turns in an excellent job as he goes from antagonistic spoiler to reluctant beau, while managing to maintain his core personality—no easy feat. The ladies in the group with which I went (ranging from 35 to 60ish) all agreed that Nero is even more virile, and better looking, than he was in his younger days. He also has the bluest eyes since Paul Newman.
So, despite a marked lack of interest, I’m glad I went. It is a good movie, if inescapably derivative. It manages to rise above its own cliché-ridden inertia to draw us into the captivating world of the well-crafted and believable characters.
It is rated PG-13, for adult themes. There is no skin or sexual content, and no profanity. There is the Italian countryside, which is almost enough to make me sell my guitar and take Nita for a visit. She loved it by the way. All four of the girls did.
If you are a die-hard Bruce Willis fan (get it?) or John Wayne aficionado, or think Arnold Schwarzenegger should have gotten an Oscar for his role in the Predator, this movie might not be for you.