MOVIE OF THE WEEK #1 (5/14/2010): LETTERS TO JULIET
KEY CAST MEMBERS: Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael García Bernal, Christopher Egan, Milena Vukotic, Lidia Biondi, Marina Massironi, Luisa Ranieri and about 5 minutes of Oliver Platt (give or take 60 seconds!)
WRITER: Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan
DIRECTOR: Gary Winick
WEB SITE: http://www.letterstojuliet-movie.com/
THE PLOT: Letters to Juliet stars the wide-eyed Amanda Seyfried as Sophie, a fact-checker who works under her boss (Oliver Platt) at The New Yorker. Sophie wants to be more than a fact-checker, though, as she longs to be a writer.
For the meantime, however, her will just have to settle for being the fiancé of Victor (Gael García Bernal), an aspiring restaurateur whose love of food and wine rivals that for his love of Sophie. Set to soon be married, the couple decides to take a trip to Verona, Italy as a pre-honeymoon. (In this economy? Only in the movies!) Arriving in town, Sophie is instantly enthralled once she comes across the "Secretaries of Juliet," a group of ladies who collect letters written by women to William Shakespeare's famous fictional character seeking romantic advice. (Yes, it's a real group!)
Sophie - who has plenty of time to herself while Victor scurries along the Italian countryside - decides to spend her time answering some letters of her own. Finding a very old letter in a very unexpected place (semi-spolier alert!), Sophie writes its sender back - which results in Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) showing up in Verona with her driver/grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan). While Claire is hoping to track down her long lost love Lorenzo some 50 years later, Charlie, is not quite so optimistic.
And once Sophie decides to tag along on the journey to write about the adventure, none of their lives may ever be the same again.
THE TAKE: First off, I know one thing about this movie: It will single-handedly cause an increase in airline tickets to Verona, Italy. The cinematography is beautiful and the romantic nature of the area will been a boon for travel agents. I must, however, follow that up with there's a VERY good chance your husband/boyfriend/tortured platonic friend will as the movie offers up a lot of the things (sappy music, outcomes and situations that seem highly implausible in a movie where the situations are supposed to take place within realistic settings, men who always say the most perfect romantic thing and know when to do it despite earlier scenes where they could NOT have been more clueless about their behavior and humor that at times is very sitcom standard in nature versus truly hilarious).
All those things aside, Juliet delivers what it sets out to offer: A lighthearted romance with a bit of comedy that will make you smile. There's nothing particularly dynamic about the film. The acting is palatable, particularly in Regrave's case as she brings a nice light-hearted touch to a role that demands one for the film to work on any level. Her performance is inspired enough to carry the film. (I also predict that I won't be the only one who wonders if Egan will match Heath Ledger's talent since he already is a British doppelgänger for him physically.)
In short, if you are in the market for a movie that's cute, unoffensive and easy on the senses, Letters to Juliet will be met with a welcome reception ... Unless you have a lot of testosterone in your system that is!
RATING (OUT OF FOUR POSSIBLE BUCKETS OF POPCORN)*:
*Yes, I am STILL too lazy to come up with a half a bucket of popcorn bucket, so this is really a 2 and a half bucket rating!
Comments
Post a Comment