When viewers make the decision to go see a romantic comedy, they can generally expect to see the same generic storyline, set in a different city, with different lead actors, and hopefully embellished with decent acting or outrageous jokes. Despite the authors’ best efforts at originality, “Letters to Juliet” definitely follows the prescribed storyline and does little else.
Conceptually, “Letters to Juliet” has tons of potential. Based loosely on the tradition of sending letters about love to the Club di Giulietta, a group of women who respond to letters addressed to Juliet, the film follows Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), an aspiring writer who journeys to Verona with her fiance (Gael GarcÃa Bernal).
While there, she joins the Club di Giulietta, discovers a letter that has gone unnoticed for 50 years and decides to answer it. This leads the writer, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), now a widow, to travel to Verona and embark on a quest for her lost love with the help of Sophie and her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan), who soon grabs Sophie’s attention as she drifts apart from her fiance.
Unfortunately, “Letters to Juliet” suffers from multiple drawbacks. While pretty, Seyfried plays a dull protagonist who lacks personality. Even though many romantic comedies feature characters with somewhat stalker-like qualities and actions, their charm can generally enable the audience to overlook those tendencies. Alas, Sophie’s lack of magnetism makes her come off as annoyingly creepy.
Redgrave does her best to save the film by conveying charisma and genuine emotion in every one of her scenes. This works well for most of the film, as her character remains fairly unchanged. However, toward the end of the film, it seems that the writers felt the need to make her more multidimensional at the last second. This move proves to be a challenge even for Redgrave, and in that instance, her character seems insincere.
Egan’s character seems to have been conceived out of the notion that being somewhat uptight and British is the epitome of an attractive man. While some may consider that to be a good start, the film does nothing to develop his character any further.
On top of that, the film moves through scenes at an almost breakneck speed while doing very little to further the story’s development. No scene seems to last more than four or five minutes. It feels as if the film is treating each scene as a bullet point on the checklist of the typical romantic comedy, and then it moves on once that scene has fulfilled its place in the story.
Even the main conflict, which audiences expect will force Seyfried and Egan apart, is not only compressed into a couple of minutes, but is also subsequently resolved in the following scene only minutes later. This undeniable deficiency of drama becomes just another factor in the mediocrity of “Letters to Juliet.”
The film also seems to have been edited in a hurry. Each scene ends abruptly, which is not helped by the fact that most of the transitions are simply pauses with black screens. While this technique may be acceptable a couple of times throughout the course of the movie, “Letters to Juliet” overuses and abuses it.
One of the film’s only redeeming qualities is the setting. Many scenes take place in picturesque vineyards or in the magnificent streets of Verona. If the audiences ever decide to ignore the endless cliches, or tacky allusions to Romeo and Juliet, they can at least be moderately entertained by the beautiful way in which the scenery was shot.
In all fairness to the actors, it does seem as if they are doing their best with what they were given. “Letters to Juliet” definitely had potential, as the concept was interesting, but sadly, it was not expanded upon. Much like the conciseness of the scenes in which they are acting, the actors often have very few lines, which only adds to the awkward feel of the film.
Overall, “Letters to Juliet” tries to take the frame of the typical romantic comedy in a new direction. It seems that their goal was to take a less comedic approach and thus have a more mature product. Sadly, they fail to add anything to help their cause and instead are left with a skeletal take on the romantic comedy model.
““ Joel Kato
E-mail Kato at jkato@media.ucla.edu.