Review of Letters to Juliet (2010) by John M — 23 Jul 2011

The intended audience will be satisfied. So there's this place in Verona where sad women with guy problems flock to post their problems on a wall, where their letters get answered by a group of ladies called the Secretaries of Juliet.

A young, aspiring writer (Amanda Seyfried) on her pre-honeymoon (long story) finds these secretaries and, in the fascination of her discovery, finds one lost letter from fifty years ago and makes it her personal mission to reunite the elderly writer and her lost love of so long ago.

This is what I call a harmless movie; it's fluffy and there's absolutely nothing offensive in it, and it's a good movie to take your mom to. It keeps a light tone throughout, and while it's nothing of the memorable variety, it's refreshing that it manages to avoid all those stupid pratfalls that plague the majority of modern romantic comedies.

All that said, Letters to Juliet does have its share of problems. I wasn't a big fan of the male romantic lead in this; he just struck me as a lesser, poor man's Ryan Phillippe. There's also a relationship angle that just doesn't work: it's really hard to root for two characters to get together when one of them is engaged to someone else; regardless if they're not right for each other, it undercuts the chemistry's effectiveness.

Add a somewhat weak third act and you have a mixed, but acceptable bag. I would by lying if I said that I didn't like parts of it; there's something about watching old couples hold hands that just warms my heart (I know, I'm a big softie).

I really can't see anybody disliking this, and if you're a fan of the genre, check it out, cause it's better than most.