At THE MOVIES WITH KASEY BUTCHER

June 4, 2010 Kasey Butcher

This week I went to see Letters to Juliet, starring Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave. In the movie, Sophie (Seyfried), a fact checker for The New Yorker, departs on a pre-honeymoon to Verona with her fiancé, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal). Supposedly the trip is so they can get away together before the wedding and before Victor’s new restaurant opens in six weeks. The trip, however, turns out to be more of a way for Victor to meet with cheese suppliers, vineyard owners, and truffle farmers than for them to spend time together. Frustrated and lonely, Sophie decides to explore Verona without Victor (who considers it a win-win situation). Outside the House of Juliet, she discovers a group of women who call themselves the “Secretaries of Juliet” and answer the letters lovelorn women leave for Juliet in the courtyard of the house. Sophie finds a letter that was stuck in the wall for fifty years and decides she simply must answer it. Then, just a few days later, the woman she sent the letter to, Claire (Redgrave), arrives in Verona with her cranky grandson, Charlie (Christopher Egan), to track down Lorenzo, the man she left behind all those years ago.

Letters to Juliet has some really lovely moments. At one point Victor plans to go see a truffle farm and Sophie is exasperated that he wants to drive 135 km “to look at a mushroom.” They agree to separate for the rest of the day and Victor responds, “It’s not a mushroom, okay. It’s a truffle,” which, for someone as passionate about food as he is, is kind of a perfect response. Later, when Sophie is amazed that her letter found Claire after 50 years, Charlie explains, “We British tend to stay put.” Finally, for me the most touching moment of the movie is a small scene between Sophie and Claire after a painful day. Sophie has just washed her hair and Claire, who is increasingly becoming a mother figure for her, comes to see if she’s okay. After a fittingly brief conversation, Claire begins to brush Sophie’s hair saying, “One of the joys of life is having someone brush your hair.” It was a perfect “slice of life” moment. Plus, Vanessa Redgrave is just wonderful.

Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between. To me, the problem with this movie, however, is that it is really sad in many ways, but continues to try to sell itself as an upbeat romantic comedy instead of embracing the emotions the plot conjures up. The result is that the interesting, authentic moments in which Seyfried and Redgrave both shine are overpowered by stupid, contrived moments. The movie feels disjointed and predictable and way worse than it needed to be.

One of the aspects of the movie that worked well was that it presented love not as a game or as something all-encompassingly wonderful like so many romantic comedies do, but as something that is hard and sometimes painful, but ultimately worth it. The Secretaries of Juliet each have specialties based on their own experiences with love, mostly centered on the ups and downs of marriage and family life. While often the fiancé who must be dumped is portrayed as a mean, insensitive buffoon, Victor isn’t a bad guy. The problem isn’t that he has some massive character flaw; it’s just that he is more passionate about his cooking than he is about Sophie. It’s sad, but really more realistic than many rom-coms and the characters are better off for it. Charlie, however, is kind of mean and insensitive and the script doesn’t do a good job of correcting those first impressions. Also, thankfully, for much of the movie Romeo & Juliet is used as an example of passion instead of trying to transform it into a romantic comedy, or the ideal love. But then, cue Taylor Swift.

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Now, generally I don’t have anything against Taylor Swift, but, catchy as it is, if her song “Love Story” says anything at all it’s that she took high school English but didn’t finish any of the reading. Spoiler Alert: Romeo and Juliet run off after knowing each other for about a heartbeat and end up killing themselves. The Scarlet Letter is kind of a creepy story about adultery. The chorus should be “It’s a love story baby, just say no.” It’s not surprising then, that precisely when “Love Story” comes on Letters to Juliet takes a turn from not great to just plain awful.

For a disjointed tone and a terribly hackneyed plot, wasting the talents of both Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave, I rate Letters to Juliet 2/5 stars.

Letters to Juliet was written by Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan and directed by Gary Winick. It runs 105 minutes and is rated PG for brief rude behavior, some language and incidental smoking.

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Kasey Butcher

She is proud to be a Ft. Wayne native, a graduate of Homestead HS, Ball State University & Miami University.She became involved with journalism editor-in-chief for her high school magazine. She authors the "At The Movies with Kasey Butcher" review.

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