Close Topic Options

Letters To Juliet

My daughter and I went to see this movie on Friday night - not our original plan, but it's a long story trying to explain it all, so we settled for this one.

Sophie and her Italian chef fiance travel to Verona, Italy, a few weeks before their wedding. She calls it a "pre-wedding honeymoon"; Victor, the hapless fiance, sees it as a business trip to make connections for his new restaurant. She wants to sight-see, he wants to go to a wine auction, etc. There doesn't seem to be much of a connection between the two from the beginning, so my question is: Why are these two engaged? I don't feel the chemistry.

So, while Victor is running around on business, Sophie is left to her own devices in Verona, Italy -- where a surprisingly large number of people speak perfect English. It is during these leisurely hours Sophie discovers "Juliet's Secretaries." (These ladies really do exist, by the way.) Women from around the world write letters to Juliet seeking advice about their love lives, and tack them to a wall in a little courtyard expecting some type of reply. The secretaries answer them all. While hanging out with them (for lack of anything else to do) Sophie finds a 50-year-old letter behind a rock in the wall. You can tell it's old because it's stained, folded, crumpled ... But, in my opinion, anything stuck behind a rock in a wall would probably have been kept in rather good condition -- but that's just me.

She finds the letter magical and romantic and simply "has to" write the response to the woman, Claire. In less than a week, Claire and her grandson, Charlie, magically appear in Verona. Claire is eager to find her lost love, Lorenzo, but the grandson is annoyed in a stiff, British way. Charlie and Sophie exchange barbs, but she still manages to get herself invited to tag along whilst Claire seeks her Lorenzo.

From there, the story is as predictable as reciting your ABCs. I won't totally spoil it for you, but I'm sure you can guess all by yourself how it turns out. If you've seen the trailer, you've pretty much seen the whole movie. It's sappy and romantic and silly -- and, personally, I feel really sorry for Victor.

I wasn't wowed with the acting, there were huge technical gaffes in the story and staging, and, for me at least, the whole thing wasn't very believable. A total fairy tale. But my 12-year-old daughter loved it!

I give it a rating of one

Juliet Letters

An American girl on vacation in Italy finds an unanswered "letter to Juliet" -- one of thousands of missives left at the fictional lover's Verona courtyard, which are typically answered by a the "secretaries of Juliet" -- and she goes on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter.