Letters to Juliet (PG) Dir: Gary Winick
This film is currently playing in theaters in Orange County and Los Angeles.
Sophie Hall (Amanda Seyfried), an aspiring writer, and her fiancé, Viktor (Gael Garcia Bernal), go on a trip to Verona, Italy. Since Viktor seems always preoccupied with other things, Sophie goes sightseeing off on her own and arrives at Juliet Capulet’s fictional house, where people write letters about their loves and posts it on the wall. She comes across a letter from 50 years ago from an Englishwoman named Claire who left her true love, Lorenzo Bartolini, who wanted to marry her. She decides to find the owner of the letter, who is now a grandma, and help her find her lost love, Lorenzo. Unfortunately, there are many people with that name. Meanwhile, Claire’s grandson, Charlie (Chris Egan), fears Claire (Venessa Redgrave) trying to find Lorenzo will only break her heart.
First off, I’m a sucker for road trip movies. There are many reasons, but one of them is the simple fact that I love traveling. When you arrive at a place you’ve never been to, you can’t quite appreciate its details—when you’re a kid and you see Eiffel Tower, you may just see a big, metal building. Now, after watching Superman II, you pay attention to the details—the cagey elevator that Superman hurls into space, the windy stairs that Lois climbs up, etc. That’s what’s cool about films. It helps you associate emotion or a thought to a place, a thing, or a detail. When I actually visited Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming, I could appreciate what to look for after having watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Watching Ronin made me want to visit Nice. Films create connection. Even celebrities you meet in real life. This film gave plenty resources for those moments.
Here, Italian landscape itself is part of the whole romance—it is its own character. This film is almost like a travelogue, but they placed a love story which allows them to show us around the area. A good chunk of the film has Sophie, Charlie, and Claire driving around the countryside and villages looking for Lorenzo and meeting people named Lorenzo. I’m a sucker for traveling, foods, and wines, and this film had all of them. It’s the texture of this film that I really appreciated. The film brought me back to the time when I went traveling to Italy and noticed all the beautiful villages in the lush landscape while inside the moving tour bus, thinking to myself, “Each of those villages have people who must have great stories to tell.” I recall actually visiting Juliet’s House in Verona and I remember the letters on the wall. There’s a certain mystique about it all. The film plays on that element.
I admit that I’m a sucker for big-eyed women. Amanda Seyfried has expressive eyes. I liked her in Mean Girls—she was one of the villains in the movie, but I actually felt sorry for her when she got her just desserts. Heck, she could be a mute and convey all the emotions with her eyes. Here, Seyfried feels very natural in her role as Sophie. She makes Sophie more interesting than I would expect, which is saying a lot. Vanessa Redgrave is charming and has great screen presence as Claire. She personifies wisdom and emotion in a way that feels dignified and real. Claire and Sophie develop kind of a mother-daughter relationship, which I found poignant. Charlie, played well by Chris Egan, whom Sophie often banters with, comes off atypical and witty.
If you’ve seen love stories before you know pretty much what’s going to happen in the film. Remarkably, here, that waiting period is punctuated by gorgeous scenery and colorful moments and characters. Imagine waiting on the phone while you’re put on hold and elevator music starts playing. Except, here, the elevator music is a beautifully grand orchestra music. The romance element is nice and heartwarming, but it is everything else outside that that I appreciated. The genre of Hollywood “romantic comedy” never really appealed to me (and a good chunk of them feel very shallow), but when there are many things appealing to the senses, one can do little but enjoy the ride. As it is said in a quote from one of my favorite road trip movies of all time, “Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” I give Letters to Juliet *** out of **** stars.
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Comments
It was a beautiful movie. True, the romance wasn't anything that new or complicated...but, if it was, there's be more romance but less of the scenery and everything else... I prefer it like this.
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