Letters to Juliet

Letters to Juliet is a 2010 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Egan, Gael García Bernal, Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero. This was the final film of director Gary Winick before his death on February 27, 2011. The film was released theatrically in North America and other countries on May 14, 2010. The idea for the film was inspired by the 2006 non-fiction book Letters to Juliet, by Lise Eve Friedman and Ceil Jann Friedman, which chronicles the phenomenon of letter-writing to Shakespeare's most famous romantic character.

Letters to Juliet
Theatrical release poster
Directed byGary Winick
Written by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyMarco Pontecorvo
Edited byBill Pankow
Music byAndrea Guerra
Production
company
Applehead Pictures
Distributed bySummit Entertainment
Release dates
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited States
Languages
  • English
  • Italian
Budget$30 million[1]
Box office$80 million[2]

Plot

Sophie is a young American woman who works for The New Yorker as a fact checker. She goes on a pre-honeymoon with her chef fiancé Victor to Verona, Italy. Victor is unmoved by the romance of Italy and uses his time constructively to conduct research for his soon-to-open restaurant, often neglecting Sophie. As Sophie explores Verona, she learns that thousands of "letters to Juliet" are left in Juliet's courtyard each year, written by women from all over the world seeking comfort and advice in love; the letters are collected and answered by a group called the "Secretaries of Juliet". Intrigued, Sophie asks to join them. Sophie later discovers an unanswered letter from a young girl named Claire Smith written in 1957, begging Juliet for guidance on her relationship with a boy named Lorenzo Bartolini. On a whim, Sophie answers the letter, and within a few days the now elderly Claire arrives in Verona with her barrister grandson Charlie. Claire and Sophie take an instant liking to each other, while Sophie and Charlie do not get along.

Claire reveals that in her youth, she made plans to run away with Lorenzo but then stood him up out of fear, and while she eventually married another man, she never forgot Lorenzo. Now widowed, Claire has decided to follow the advice given in Sophie's reply and seek out her long-lost love, despite Charlie's objections to the idea. Sophie goes along with them, hoping Claire's story might kickstart her writing career and is genuinely interested in the story's outcome.

Sophie discovers that there are seventy-four Lorenzo Bartolinis in the area, and the group decides to visit as many as possible in the hope of finding the right one. During this time, Sophie and Charlie grow closer. After many days of searching, they find one Lorenzo who has died, saddening Claire. A frustrated Charlie lashes out at Sophie and accuses her of not knowing what real loss is. Claire, witnessing the dispute, tells Charlie that Sophie's mother had walked away from her when she was a little girl and insists that he apologize to Sophie. The following day, Sophie talks to Charlie about love and her belief that Claire's Lorenzo is still alive, and the two share a kiss, although Sophie quickly pulls away.

On their last day of searching, having accepted that their quest will likely be in vain, Claire points out a vineyard and asks to stop so they can have a farewell drink for Sophie. As Charlie drives down the road, Claire spots a young man who looks exactly like her Lorenzo. They discover that the young man is the grandson of the Lorenzo they have been seeking and that the Bartolini family owns the vineyard they have come to visit. Claire and Lorenzo are finally reunited, and the group spends the afternoon at Lorenzo's home, sharing a meal with the extended Bartolini family while Claire and Lorenzo, a widower, happily reconnect. Later, as Sophie heads back to Verona, Claire pushes Charlie to pursue her, but he backs off when he sees Sophie with Victor.

Back in New York, exhausted by the differences and lack of passion in their relationship, Sophie impulsively breaks up with Victor before returning to Verona to attend Claire and Lorenzo's wedding. During the reception, Claire reads Sophie's reply to her original "letter to Juliet" that set the events in motion, but Sophie runs out crying after seeing Charlie with a woman called Patricia, which he had mentioned was his ex-girlfriend's name. Charlie goes after Sophie and finds her standing on a balcony above him, where she admits she loves him but tells him to go back to his girlfriend. Charlie reveals that this Patricia is his cousin, not his girlfriend, and tells Sophie he loves her back. He climbs a vine up to the balcony, recreating the famous scene from Romeo and Juliet, but falls when the vine snaps, and he and Sophie kiss as he lies on the ground while Claire, Lorenzo, and the wedding guests look on.

Cast
  • Amanda Seyfried as Sophie Hall, a fact checker living in New York
  • Christopher Egan as Charlie Wyman, Claire's loyal grandson, who has trouble coming to terms with his grandmother loving anyone other than his late grandfather. His parents died in a car accident.
  • Gael García Bernal as Victor, Sophie's hard-working chef fiancé who is easily preoccupied with anything having to do with food, cooking, and the opening of his restaurant. They later break up.
  • Vanessa Redgrave as Claire Smith, the woman who wrote the letter to Juliet 50 years before, and is quixotically hoping to find her Lorenzo.
  • Franco Nero as Lorenzo Bartolinl, Claire's love interest. Nero is Redgrave's real life husband. Roger Ebert, having interviewed both Nero and Redgrave on the set of Camelot in 1966 – where they met, fell in love, separated, then married 40 years later – noted how much of the love story between their characters is nearly autobiographical.[3]
  • Luisa Ranieri as Isabella, one of the four original Juliet's secretaries
  • Marina Massironi as Francesca, one of Juliet's secretaries.
  • Milena Vukotic as Maria, one of Juliet's secretaries.
  • Luisa De Santis as Angelina, Isabella's mother.
  • Lidia Biondi as Donatella, one of Juliet's secretaries.

In addition, Oliver Platt briefly appears as Sophie's boss in New York, while Stefano Guerrini makes a brief appearance as Lorenzo's grandson, who catches Claire's attention as he looks like Lorenzo once did.

Release and reception

Critical reception

Letters to Juliet received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film has an approval rating of 42% based on 160 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Letters to Juliet has a refreshingly earnest romantic charm, but it suffers from limp dialogue and an utter lack of surprises."[4] Metacritic gives it an average score of 50 out of 100 based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[5]

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called the film "cheerfully ridiculous", pointing out the differing accents from both Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan, but gave praise to Vanessa Redgrave for a "likably, if not quite intentionally mad performance."[6] Amy Biancolli of the San Francisco Chronicle was also positive towards Redgrave, describing her performance as being "elegant, clear-eyed and nurturing" and noting that she "commands the corniest dialogue to stand up and sound like poetry."[7] Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News praised both Redgrave and Seyfried, saying the former brings "a lovely gravity to the lightweight proceedings" and the latter displays "an unusually levelheaded presence."[8] Roger Ebert, said it had "unimaginably beautiful shots of the Italian countryside" and, aware of the film's genre and how it operates, gave it three out of five stars: "I know the ending is preordained from the setup. I know the characters are broad and comforting stereotypes. In this case, I simply don't care. Sometimes we have personal reasons for responding to a film."[3]

Bill Gibron from PopMatters criticized the film for having two conflicting stories where only one is interesting, characters that make idiotic decisions for the plot to progress and have little romantic chemistry together that results in a lack of emotional resonance for the viewers, saying that "Letters to Juliet loses on all counts. It's not a comedy. It's barely romantic, and even the scenery looks filtered through a couple dozen attempts at post-production color timing (no nation is this…golden)."[9] Nick Schager of Slant Magazine was negative towards its "cornball fairy-tale romanticism", criticizing the performances of Seyfried and Egan for having "a prototypically bland rom-com heroine" and being "laughably phony" in the material both given respectively, and found the plot to be of "dime store novel-quality."[10] Kyle Smith of the New York Post also saw the generic plot "as straight and obvious as raw spaghetti", and gave half-hearted praise to the line delivery of Seyfried and Egan, saying they "may be the perfect actors to carry out this assignment: Neither is embarrassable."[11]

Box office

Letters to Juliet opened at #3 to $13,540,486 behind Iron Man 2's second weekend and Robin Hood.[12] In its second weekend, the film dropped 33.5% with $9,006,266 and with the arrival of Shrek Forever After the film slipped to #4.[13] The film eventually grossed $53,032,453 domestically and $79,181,750 worldwide.[2]

Soundtrack

References
  1. Fritz, Ben (May 16, 2010). "First Look: 'Robin Hood' wobbly in U.S. but hits target overseas". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 26, 2020. Retrieved May 16, 2010.
  2. "Letters to Juliet (2010)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  3. Ebert, Roger (May 12, 2010). "Reading the memories between the lines". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2020 – via RogerEbert.com.
  4. "Letters to Juliet (2010)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
  5. "Letters to Juliet Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  6. Bradshaw, Peter (June 10, 2010). "Film review: Letters to Juliet". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on June 7, 2020. Retrieved July 1, 2018.
  7. Biancolli, Amy (May 14, 2010). "Review: 'Letters to Juliet'". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  8. Weitzman, Elizabeth (May 14, 2010). "Letters to Juliet". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on July 23, 2010. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
  9. Gibron, Bill (May 14, 2010). "You Can't Blame Romeo for Abandoning this 'Juliet'". PopMatters. Archived from the original on January 3, 2021. Retrieved July 1, 2018.
  10. Schager, Nick (May 13, 2010). "Review: Letters to Juliet". Slant Magazine. Archived from the original on January 3, 2021. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
  11. Smith, Kyle (May 14, 2010). "In 'Letters to Juliet' all roads lead to Romeo". New York Post. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
  12. Weekend Box Office Results for May 14-16, 2010 Box Office Mojo, accessed 26 March 2019
  13. Weekend Box Office Results for May 21-23, 2010 Box Office Mojo, accessed 26 March 2019
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