Film Reviews

Letters to Juliet

• Rating:
• Director: Gary Winick
• Starring: Amanda Seyfried
• Details: US/105mins PG

Unabashedly cheesy, with stereotypical characters spewing inane dialogue in wholly unrealistic circumstances, Letters to Juliet proves once more that Amanda Seyfried can shine regardless of the material she's given. While the same can't be said of Heath Ledger/Hugh Grant hybrid Christopher Egan, Vanessa Redgrave adds a much-needed touch of class to proceedings. Still, this sun-drenched effort will find an audience hungry for more romantic dramas with a touch of broad comedy, as it stands as another Hollywood production that perpetuates the notion that you must really dislike someone before falling in love with them.
Seyfried is our heroine; a fact-checker for the prestigious New Yorker magazine, she really wants to be a writer but just hasn't been given the chance yet. Alas, a trip to the gorgeous Verona with her distracted fiancé should give her plenty of fodder for her journal - and that it does. Whilst visiting the fictional courtyard of Juliet, where women from all over the world write letters to the fictional Shakespearian character, she follows home one of the "Secretaries of Juliet," and discovers that they reply to every single letter posted on Juliet's wall. When she starts working as a translator for them, and finds a letter that has been missing for several decades, she replies and is astounded when the woman, now a grandmother, takes her advice and turns up to search for her long lost love.
From the very first time we meet Seyfried's Sophie, she's with a guy who couldn't care less about her if she had "leper" tattooed in bright red ink on her forehead. It doesn't help that Gael García Bernal gives an irritating performance of truly epic proportions, but the fact that Sophie is with this chump, a man saturated with flaws, hurts her character. No woman, at least not someone with the obvious smarts and good looks as Sophie, would put up with it; and if they did, you'd question their sanity - not plonk them in the middle of a romantic dramedy.
When she meets Egan's pompous English grandson, we're supposed to then root for her, as this is the man of her dreams. But he's not really; he's a scarily possessive toff channelling a pre-About a Boy Hugh Grant, who likes her despite her engagement to a man he knows nothing about. The core story meant to drive the film forward, of Redgrave yearning for her lost love, is innately silly, but undeniably sweet. Be warned; they knock on more doors than a pizza delivery boy in a Middle-American State, so you may be checking your watch after the fifth or sixth doorbell ringing.
Throughout all of this, Seyfried lights up the screen. Her choices of late may have been shallow and aimed squarely towards an easily-pleased demographic, but she's still the best thing about most of the films she's in - and that's no different here. Hopefully she will have enough hit films under her belt to take a risk soon.

Review by Mike Sheridan