It would be really easy to beat Letters to Juliet into the ground. It’s not a good film, but in comparing it to the rash of awful romantic comedies as of late it isn’t nearly as insulting. While women are still painted as overly emotional wrecks whose lives are bolstered primarily by the men in their lives, at the center of the story is an ambitious girl interested in furthering her career all while intent on marrying the man she loves.
It’s the same genre trappings we’ve seen so many times before, but this girl is never painted as a lovestruck, oblivious nitwit. Her motivations are genuine at the start of the film. She sees what’s right in front of her and unfortunately the predictable turns in the story don’t do the movie any favors, but at least we have a character with some semblance of a brain.
The story is inspired by the real-life group of Italian women referred to as the “Club di Giulietta” who respond to letters to Juliet seeking advice about love as well as sue movie studios releasing movies based on them without permission (get the details). On a pre-wedding honeymoon — told you this was predictable — with her fiance (Gael Garcia Bernal) in Verona, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) happens upon this group and decides to help out for a day. Of course, in her first 5 minutes on the job she happens upon a 50-year-old letter, answers it, and its sender (Vanessa Redgrave) heads to Verona at the suggestion of Sophie with her unattached grandson to search for her long lost love. Again… predictable.
From this point forward the story has very little going for it. We watch as the trio head out to find Lorenzo based on an arbitrary search radius decided by Sophie. When their search turns up empty they stay the night at the hotel. Wash, rinse, repeat. This same scenario happens about three times in a row, each time allowing Sophie and Charlie (Christopher Egan) to get to know each other a little better until the third act rolls around and has a truly awful scene involving a balcony and I’ll leave the rest up to you.
The acting isn’t worth mentioning because rom-coms are rarely about the performances, but one thing that really stunned me was the truly awful musical selections. What seems like an attempt at Italian pop songs simply comes off as tunes purchased on a shoestring budget. Cheap is the word and it happens all too frequently.
This really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise seeing how director Gary Winick’s last film was 2009’s god-awful Bride Wars and he wasn’t doing all that much better five years earlier with 13 Going on 30, even though I’ll admit I didn’t think that film was all that bad. Overall, Letters to Juliet may tug at the heart strings of a few female audience members, but I wouldn’t be surprised if even most of them turn their nose up at this stale effort.
