Letters to Juliet

If you liked “Mamma Mia,” played with Ken and Barbie dolls, and don't really care about being realistic, then you'll love “Letters to Juliet.” Amanda Seyfried is back to her role as Sophie (same name as her character in “Mamma Mia” - and pretty much the same exact person.) She's an American living in Italy with her stupid fiance, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), an aspiring chef who should never be taken seriously. There is no need for a “comic relief” character in a friggin' chick flick. Anyway, one day while wandering the streets of Italy, Sophie comes across a courtyard in Verona where idiotic tourists write sappy letters to a fictional person (Juliet) for advice with their love lives and then shove the letters into a wall...yes, like the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. But then at the end of the day this lady comes and collects all the letters and Sophie follows her to this little group of middle aged women who answer these letters. Sophie somehow finagles her way into this little group since she's a writer. She then gets the honorable job of responding to a letter that had been written in 1957 by a woman named Claire (Vanessa Redgrave). They all gush over what a beautiful love story it is. Then like 2 seconds later in the movie, Claire's grandson Charlie, the bratty British Ken doll played by Christopher Egan shows up and yells at Sophie for reminding Claire of her past and causing her to come to Italy to find her long-lost lover. Sophie intelligently retorts “I'm sorry, I didn't know love had an expiration date” and proceeds to follow Charlie back to his grandmother – she's a little creeper.  Claire and Sophie decide to scour the countryside for Claire's former lover and Charlie is all cranky and doesn't want to go and says he hates Sophie's guts.  Regardless they go and it doesn't take a expert movie critic to predict that Sophie and Charlie end up together in a very Romeo and Juliet fashion.

Actually I'm only 99.9% sure they end up together because I left before the movie was over.  I had just seen "Eclipse" right before and couldn't handle another chick flick. It was just so predictable and cheesy.  The movie tried to get deep once when Charlie and Sophie bring up their parents dying and leaving her, respectively.  But it's a chick flick, and so background really doesn't matter and the issue was never really brought up again.  It was altogether fairly irrelevant.

The cinematography was nothing special.  It was typical "Italy" shots - warm and full.  The acting was tolerable...the actors didn't have much of a script to work with.  I think the only good thing about this movie was that it WASN'T Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey playing the leads - although it seemed like it at times.  

You can see this movie if you really really want to....or if you need to spend some quality time with your mom, because lots of moms probably will like this movie.  It is, after all, a classic chick flick.

Grades: | [ & =[ & =|

if you want a star grade, I'd say .5 out of 4. 

-Sarah Wason

Grade key:

| [ (so bad I had to close my eyes.)

=[.. (caused drooling out of lack of interest/lack of intelligent content)

=( (made me sad that I saw it)

=\ (made me concerned for those involved in production)

=| (so generic that I have no significant comment)

=] (I enjoyed it. It often made me smile without feeling shame or brain decay or it made me think.)

=D (it made me laugh... this is not difficult – I laugh at many things)

=O (made my proverbial jaw drop. Blown away by some prominent aspect.)