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Letters to Juliet Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG (for brief rude behavior, some language and incidental smoking) Genre: Comedy, Romance Theater release: May 14, 2010 by Summit Entertainment Directed by: Gary Winick Runtime: 1 hour 44 minutes Cast: Amanda Seyfried (Sophie), Vanessa Redgrave (Claire), Christopher Egan (Charlie), Gael Garcia Bernal (Victor) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

This is the dilemma of movie reviewing: a critic who has honed professional discernment by studying the cinematic arts will not be as generous toward a film as a happy audience that is just looking for a good time. When I picked up my daughter for the screening, I said, "I don't know why I wanted to review this; it looks awful."

That opinion did not change—but while Meg and I were rolling our eyes and whispering witty critiques, hundreds of people around us, who had filled every seat in the theater, were having a ball. They laughed, they sighed, they cheered, they grew thoughtfully silent approximately 30 seconds after Meg whispered to me, "Now something devastating is going to happen."

But in this particular case there's a mystery, too. Why did so many people turn out for this screening? Would every age and race in Baltimore turn out just for elegant, British septuagenarian Vanessa Redgrave? It doesn't seem like the other two leads, Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan, have enough star power to account for this. The film promised no fights, sex, or special effects. So what was the draw?

Amanda Seyfried as Sophie

The story concerns Sophie (Seyfried), a fact-checker at the New Yorker who dreams of being a writer. She is on her way to Italy for a "pre-honeymoon" with her boyfriend, Victor; it's "pre" because, just days after the wedding, Victor is going to open a restaurant. But we don't see much of Victor, and that's a shame because he would have been an interesting main character. It's not that the character is all that well-written, but that Gael Garcia Bernal (Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Science of Sleep) brings an eye-catching manic, ditzy quality to his portrayal of this passionate foodie. Bernal steals the scene whenever he's onscreen, which, unfortunately, is not often enough.

As Victor revels in the pasta, vineyards, and truffle farms, Sophie goes off to see the sights of Verona. She finds a courtyard where many women, some in tears, are writing notes and taping them to the stone wall. At the end of the day, a woman with a basket comes and gathers all the notes. Curious, Sophie follows her, and learns that a custom has grown up of writing letters to Juliet, Shakespeare's most popular character, the doomed fiancÉe of Romeo. These letters describe love lost, found, or troubled, and ask her guidance, and a group of Veronese women, "Juliet's Secretaries," have taken on the task of writing replies.

This part of the movie is factual, as a 2006 book by the title Letters to Juliet documented. According to The Juliet Club website, "Since the 1930s, Juliet has received countless letters from writers all over the world, and amazingly, they've all received an answer." (All? Gee.) Every year the club gives a prize which "recognizes the spontaneity of the writers who turn to Juliet." ("Spontaneity"?)

Gael Garcia Bernal as Victor

Sophie is readily recruited to fill in as an English-speaking secretary. One day, while gathering the missives, Sophie knocks aside a loose stone and discovers behind it a letter written in 1957. The writer, Claire, tells Juliet that she had promised Lorenzo that she would run away with him, but lost her courage. "Please, Juliet, tell me what I should do."

Sophie writes to Claire, and before you can say "unlikely plot contrivance" Claire's hunky grandson, Charlie (Egan), is storming into the secretaries' office to chastise Sophie for disrupting his Gran's life. Yes, Claire is waiting outside with a rented car, ready to try to locate her long-lost Lorenzo. With Victor away at a wine auction, Sophie is free to tootle around the glorious countryside with them, using her fact-checking skills to locate every Lorenzo Bartolini in the region.

A character like Claire, an older woman who is an attractive and even romantic figure, is one that comes along very rarely. The part is inherently a quiet one, as Claire is tender, vulnerable and hopeful, so the challenge was to render it invitingly without overdoing things. Redgrave, nearly 6 feet tall, strides along in pale, fluttering garments, applying every ounce of her impressive talent to giving this lightly-sketched character some depth. She works her face desperately, trying to convey ample emotion without cracking Claire's delicate veneer. It's like watching Yo Yo Ma play a kazoo.

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