Letters to Juliet

Released: 2010
This is supposed to be a romantic film
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Gael Garcia Bernal
Director: Gary Winick
Running Time: 105 minutes


The breakdown:  A lonely girl wants to help an older woman find her lost love.


I was not at all impressed with this film.  It was trying way too hard to be funny, romantic, charming, and it failed miserably at all of those.  It seems to be the type of movie that this Amanda Seyfried usually stars in (See Dear John - another terrible "romantic" movie) where there's no chemistry and no interesting plot.

This wanna' be reporter for a big New York newspaper is engaged to be married to a chef and he is trying to start his own restaurant.  They go to Italy to investigate some of his sources of ingredients for food.  He's way too busy checking out vineyards, and other restaurants to pay any attention to her so she wanders off on her own.  She sees all these women writing letters and sticking them to a wall.  She's curious, and bored so she stays there for a long while, and then sees this woman with a basket come and collect all the letters at the end of the day.  She follows this woman and finds out that there are a small bunch of women who read the letters and respond to them.  These are the letters to and secretaries of Juliet.
She likes to write and starts hanging out with them and responding to letters.  She finds this very very old one way back in a crack in the wall one night and realizes no ever found it and she wonders what happened to the author.
She decides to chase down the author who is now in her late 60's.  The letter states that the young girl didn't know what to do about a love of hers that wanted to run away together.  She asked if she should go or not.
Seyfried finds out that she did not run away with her love, but instead stayed and eventually married someone else and had children.  Her husband died many years later and she is now single again and wants to try to track down her old flame.  In the meanwhile, her grandson is with her and encourages her and Seyfried not to do this.  Anyway, Seyfried and the grandson at first hate each other, but eventually become friends and possibly more depending on Seyfried's engagement going through or not.

My main problem with this movie is that it's generic, normal, boring, not a new formula on an old idea, and never really goes anywhere.  The characters are uninteresting and stereotypical, the plot is bland, and there's no chemistry between any of the so called lovers.

For something that's supposed to be a romantic comedy, it's very forgettable and drab.

I give it 1/2 out of 5 for lack of originality, lack of chemistry, lack of interesting plot, and just being overall ho-hum bland.  Don't waste your time.