Romance. Starring Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave and Chris Egan. Directed by Gary Winick. (PG. 101 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Myles Aronowitz / Summit Entertainment LLC
Amanda Seyfried helps others find love in "Letters to Juliet."
Images
Amanda Seyfried helps others find love in "Letters to Jul...Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan star in "Letters to ...Amanda Seyfried, right, and Gael Garcia Bernal are shown ... View All Images (5)
Not to be a cynic
or anything, but maybe a fictional 13-year-old isn't the best source of advice for the lovelorn. Yet there they are in director Gary Winick's "Letters to Juliet," a mob of sobbing women, hunched over spiral-bound notebooks as they scrawl out tales of love and heartbreak in Juliet's supposed courtyard at the supposed house of the Capulets in Verona, Italy.
Letters implore Shakespeare's doomed teen lover for advice. And she writes back. A team of sassy ladies employed by the city dole out responses to every letter, including a 50-year-old missive from a Brit named Claire that got wedged behind a loose rock and - golly - no one noticed in the ensuing decades.
At least, not until Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) arrives in Verona for a little vacay with her cute, weird fiance chef (Gael García Bernal). To amuse herself, Sophie joins the ladies' letter-writing brigade and whips off a belated reply to Claire, prompting the near-instant arrival of the woman (Vanessa Redgrave) and her handsome, snotty grandson, Charlie (Chris Egan). The three then embark on a search for Claire's lost love, a Tuscan farmer named Lorenzo.
So go the opening minutes of "Letters to Juliet," a squishy-soft romance set to bouncing Italian pop. It's like a long swallow from a bottle of a very sweet wine. Goes down easy, warms the gut, leaves a film of sugar on the teeth.
Egan, from Australia, is an amusing fellow, and Seyfried is fine, but neither is the reason to see the movie.
Redgrave is. After watching her elegant, clear-eyed and nurturing performance in "Letters to Juliet," you'll want her to brush your hair the way Claire brushes Sophie's in the film's most touching scene. Redgrave commands the corniest dialogue to stand up and sound like poetry. "Life is the messy bits," she says, a line that echoes inevitably with her recent losses off-screen.
Myles Aronowitz / Summit Entertainment LLC
Amanda Seyfried helps others find love in "Letters to Juliet."
Images
Amanda Seyfried helps others find love in "Letters to Jul...Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan star in "Letters to ...Amanda Seyfried, right, and Gael Garcia Bernal are shown ... View All Images (5)
Not to be a cynic
or anything, but maybe a fictional 13-year-old isn't the best source of advice for the lovelorn. Yet there they are in director Gary Winick's "Letters to Juliet," a mob of sobbing women, hunched over spiral-bound notebooks as they scrawl out tales of love and heartbreak in Juliet's supposed courtyard at the supposed house of the Capulets in Verona, Italy.Letters implore Shakespeare's doomed teen lover for advice. And she writes back. A team of sassy ladies employed by the city dole out responses to every letter, including a 50-year-old missive from a Brit named Claire that got wedged behind a loose rock and - golly - no one noticed in the ensuing decades.
At least, not until Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) arrives in Verona for a little vacay with her cute, weird fiance chef (Gael García Bernal). To amuse herself, Sophie joins the ladies' letter-writing brigade and whips off a belated reply to Claire, prompting the near-instant arrival of the woman (Vanessa Redgrave) and her handsome, snotty grandson, Charlie (Chris Egan). The three then embark on a search for Claire's lost love, a Tuscan farmer named Lorenzo.
So go the opening minutes of "Letters to Juliet," a squishy-soft romance set to bouncing Italian pop. It's like a long swallow from a bottle of a very sweet wine. Goes down easy, warms the gut, leaves a film of sugar on the teeth.
Egan, from Australia, is an amusing fellow, and Seyfried is fine, but neither is the reason to see the movie.
Redgrave is. After watching her elegant, clear-eyed and nurturing performance in "Letters to Juliet," you'll want her to brush your hair the way Claire brushes Sophie's in the film's most touching scene. Redgrave commands the corniest dialogue to stand up and sound like poetry. "Life is the messy bits," she says, a line that echoes inevitably with her recent losses off-screen.
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