Review: Letters to Juliet
Film: Letters to Juliet
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael García Bernal, Christopher Egan, Franco Nero
Director: Gary Winick
Screenwriter: Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan
The title sounds endearing enough, and even the premise sounded good. A woman on vacation in Verona, Italy stumbles upon the "Secretaries of Juliet" who write advice to the lovelorn. Being a writer herself and a bit of a romantic, she joins in, because her fiance is too busy darting around the country getting tips, treats and cooking lessons, as well as making contacts for his new restaurant which he is opening in New York. She stumbles across a 50 year old letter and decides to reply to it, which leads her on an adventure helping a woman find her lost love.
Sadly, that's where the fun ends. If you're into saccharine, chick-flick romances, then this is your kind of film. No one dies at the end, thankfully. That would have been too much for me. I lost interest in chick-flicks, when I saw a few in one year that all had the similar outcome: kill off someone to make the audience of mainly females cry. "What a cheap shot," I had thought in my pre-teens after seeing a few films use this gimmick. Since then I choose my girl-films very carefully and watch with a wary eye.
This film had some good aspects to it: The scenery of course, and Vanessa Redgrave. In fact, her quest to find her long-lost boyfriend is what really makes the film interesting. She's searching for her long lost Lorenzo, but there are so many with the same surname, that it seems he's impossible to find.
I laughed only once, and that's when one of the Lorenzos says, "I am your Lorenzo," followed by his wife shouting out the window, "Take him! Take him!"
That, sadly, was the best part of the movie.
I would have enjoyed it even more if it was Vanessa's film of her alone pursuing this goal. However, it's all about who you cast in these films, and you need some young, up and coming actress to be the lead.
The events that lead up to the quest are what hurts the film. They're too easy or too quickly established. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) just happens to follow this woman who just took down a bunch of letters written to "Juliet" that were tacked on a wall. And the Secretaries of Juliet welcome her in without blinking an eye. They are also surprisingly open about what they're doing, while the real-life Secretaries of Juliet are closed off to the public and restrict any visitor access.
Other things just happen too quickly. Sophie writes a letter to Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), and suddenly - poof - Claire arrives in Verona. I don't know how long it takes for a letter to arrive in England from Italy, but from the US it can take up to 2 weeks depending upon where in the country it's sent from and going to.
Then my least favorite overused cliche, the "sexual tension" that's introduced. This is another exhausted gimmick in chick-flicks these days. Woman meets man, they argue quite often, they fall in love. The end.
I love the film industry. I really do. However, when they can't think of original ideas and keep borrowing the same old ones, it's pretty darned sad.
So yes, Sophie and Charlie (Christopher Egan) clash at first. Then of course you know what's going to happen. I was rolling my eyes the instant he snapped at her, which was in the very first scene.
And talk about a stereotypical stuffy Englishman! Claire tries to explain away that it's just a family trait, but how many times have we seen this played out?
Other things that didn't work:
1. Amanda Seyfried walking like she's either doing a runway fashion show or scowling at the world. She'd just finish laughing or smiling at something or experiencing a pleasant situation, then as she walks away she scowls with this blank expression on her face. She does this for a good portion of the film. Perhaps it's the fact that she's from New York, but I found it very pretentious and a bit cold.
2. Maybe it's my independent spirit, but if you're a gung-ho gal who wants to go from a fact checker to a writer, and you have the guts to invite yourself on a road trip, why can't you rent a car or go on a bus tour of Tuscany, rather than let your busy fiance ruin it for you? One of you might respond that she didn't have the guts at first, but I disagree. I really don't know what changed her in the film. She didn't really change all that much.
3. And that could have been my other problem. At the end Sophie tells her fiance, Victor, that she's changed, but all that changed were external, aside from her feelings toward him. There is no moment where we see a transformation. She doesn't really change in this film. The only person who does is Charlie. This should have been his movie with Vanessa. That would have worked even better.
So if you can get past the simplistic, childish young romance that plays out around Claire's story, then go see the film. In fact, rent it so you can fast forward to Vanessa's scenes and the scenery.
Director Gary Vinick visited for the Q&A and talked about how he put the film together and what it was like working with Vanessa Redgrave. He said Vanessa was always very particular about her scenes and would know everyone's lines and place in a scene.
He casted Amanda first, and once he had her, the studio was happy.
He said their only hardship was the heat in Italy and the working habits of the crew. Unlike the US that has a standard 12 hour filming day with potential for overtime going an additional 2-4 hours a day, Italian's are more strict, adhering to 10 hours with little or no overtime. So this added days to filming and greatly cut the number of days they had planned to film in New York.
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael García Bernal, Christopher Egan, Franco Nero
Director: Gary Winick
Screenwriter: Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan
The title sounds endearing enough, and even the premise sounded good. A woman on vacation in Verona, Italy stumbles upon the "Secretaries of Juliet" who write advice to the lovelorn. Being a writer herself and a bit of a romantic, she joins in, because her fiance is too busy darting around the country getting tips, treats and cooking lessons, as well as making contacts for his new restaurant which he is opening in New York. She stumbles across a 50 year old letter and decides to reply to it, which leads her on an adventure helping a woman find her lost love.
Sadly, that's where the fun ends. If you're into saccharine, chick-flick romances, then this is your kind of film. No one dies at the end, thankfully. That would have been too much for me. I lost interest in chick-flicks, when I saw a few in one year that all had the similar outcome: kill off someone to make the audience of mainly females cry. "What a cheap shot," I had thought in my pre-teens after seeing a few films use this gimmick. Since then I choose my girl-films very carefully and watch with a wary eye.
This film had some good aspects to it: The scenery of course, and Vanessa Redgrave. In fact, her quest to find her long-lost boyfriend is what really makes the film interesting. She's searching for her long lost Lorenzo, but there are so many with the same surname, that it seems he's impossible to find.
I laughed only once, and that's when one of the Lorenzos says, "I am your Lorenzo," followed by his wife shouting out the window, "Take him! Take him!"
That, sadly, was the best part of the movie.
I would have enjoyed it even more if it was Vanessa's film of her alone pursuing this goal. However, it's all about who you cast in these films, and you need some young, up and coming actress to be the lead.
The events that lead up to the quest are what hurts the film. They're too easy or too quickly established. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) just happens to follow this woman who just took down a bunch of letters written to "Juliet" that were tacked on a wall. And the Secretaries of Juliet welcome her in without blinking an eye. They are also surprisingly open about what they're doing, while the real-life Secretaries of Juliet are closed off to the public and restrict any visitor access.
Other things just happen too quickly. Sophie writes a letter to Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), and suddenly - poof - Claire arrives in Verona. I don't know how long it takes for a letter to arrive in England from Italy, but from the US it can take up to 2 weeks depending upon where in the country it's sent from and going to.
Then my least favorite overused cliche, the "sexual tension" that's introduced. This is another exhausted gimmick in chick-flicks these days. Woman meets man, they argue quite often, they fall in love. The end.
I love the film industry. I really do. However, when they can't think of original ideas and keep borrowing the same old ones, it's pretty darned sad.
So yes, Sophie and Charlie (Christopher Egan) clash at first. Then of course you know what's going to happen. I was rolling my eyes the instant he snapped at her, which was in the very first scene.
And talk about a stereotypical stuffy Englishman! Claire tries to explain away that it's just a family trait, but how many times have we seen this played out?
Other things that didn't work:
1. Amanda Seyfried walking like she's either doing a runway fashion show or scowling at the world. She'd just finish laughing or smiling at something or experiencing a pleasant situation, then as she walks away she scowls with this blank expression on her face. She does this for a good portion of the film. Perhaps it's the fact that she's from New York, but I found it very pretentious and a bit cold.
2. Maybe it's my independent spirit, but if you're a gung-ho gal who wants to go from a fact checker to a writer, and you have the guts to invite yourself on a road trip, why can't you rent a car or go on a bus tour of Tuscany, rather than let your busy fiance ruin it for you? One of you might respond that she didn't have the guts at first, but I disagree. I really don't know what changed her in the film. She didn't really change all that much.
3. And that could have been my other problem. At the end Sophie tells her fiance, Victor, that she's changed, but all that changed were external, aside from her feelings toward him. There is no moment where we see a transformation. She doesn't really change in this film. The only person who does is Charlie. This should have been his movie with Vanessa. That would have worked even better.
So if you can get past the simplistic, childish young romance that plays out around Claire's story, then go see the film. In fact, rent it so you can fast forward to Vanessa's scenes and the scenery.
Director Gary Vinick visited for the Q&A and talked about how he put the film together and what it was like working with Vanessa Redgrave. He said Vanessa was always very particular about her scenes and would know everyone's lines and place in a scene.
He casted Amanda first, and once he had her, the studio was happy.
He said their only hardship was the heat in Italy and the working habits of the crew. Unlike the US that has a standard 12 hour filming day with potential for overtime going an additional 2-4 hours a day, Italian's are more strict, adhering to 10 hours with little or no overtime. So this added days to filming and greatly cut the number of days they had planned to film in New York.
Comments
Post a Comment