Sunday, October 2, 2011

Letters to Juliet ~ a cute romance


Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is a fact finder for New Yorker Magazine.  Her fiancé, Victor (Gael García Bernal) is opening a new restaurant in New York and they have planned a pre-honeymoon in Verona, Italy. Sophie plans on a romantic vacation, sightseeing, and nothing but her and Victor. Victor wants to show Sophie all of the great things in Italy, mainly involving his suppliers for the new restaurant.

Growing quickly bored with Victor’s tour, Sophie decides to see the fictional Juliet Capulet’s balcony made famous by the William Shakespeare story. She finds each day, hundreds of letters are left by women on the walls of the balcony asking Juliet for guidance in their lives. Sophie observes the "secretaries of Juliet" collect the notes, and mail responses to those who have left them.

Sophie finds a letter wedged in the wall from 50 years ago, in which a woman named Claire did not meet with her love Lorenzo because she was afraid, her family did not approve of him, and she begged to know what to do. Sophie responds in a letter to Claire which motivates Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) to travel back to Verona from England with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan) to search for Lorenzo so Claire may tell him that she is sorry for not meeting him that night long ago.

Charlie, being overprotective of his grandmother is not pleased, and equally not pleased that Sophie accompanies his grandmother and him, across Italy in search of Lorenzo. Seeing the love and devotion displayed by Claire, Sophie begins to question her love for Victor, as she starts to fall for Charlie.

This is another score points with the significant other movie. It is cute and romantic with enough entertainment to make it quaint. The movie has some very nice locations that if you’re a fan of Italy, you will enjoy. I didn’t hate it, but it’s a typical romance movie. Girl getting married, questions relationship, finds new love, fiancé too self-absorbed, and girl gets afraid, runs from new love until she’s brave enough to overcome fear, runs back to new love. Ta da!

Go ahead, surprise the other half and bring home the romance!

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