Letters to Juliet

Rating:

Men: ‘Letters to Juliet’ is a film with such pipe dream romance that you can’t help but barf more than once. Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal co-stars and Puerto Rican Jose Rivera writes this cheesy and predictable film very hard for any straight man to like.

Women: You’ll love, love, love ‘Letters to Juliet’ because you’ll be swept away in the glittering panoramas, the unconditional search for love and the poppy soundtrack that your local top 40 station plays. Moreover, the true reason you’ll love this film is because men like Charlie (Christopher Egan) will fight for your love even though you’ll push men like this away all the time in real life.

The plot of ‘Letters to Juliet’ is interesting. An American girl (Amanda Seyfried) 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 embarks on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter.

When it comes to romantic movies, I have adopted a philosophy. All you really need to develop a love story, successfully, is that the characters are well developed, the actors playing the leads display a degree of sexual chemistry, and that their relationship is portrayed on the screen naturally. Details of the plot are relatively irrelevant as all romance films follow a predictable path. Unfortunately, lately, romantic movies have become less and less convincing, with stars having higher priority than the narrative and interesting supporting characters never being fully fleshed out. Unfortunately, ‘Letters to Juliet “does not apply my formula to the ‘letter’, thus, its virtues are few. Its core narrative is more given to the sensibilities of young women and tweeny girls.

Gael Garcia Bernal plays Victor, a chef whose top priority in life is to open his own Italian restaurant in New York. Gael plays one the romantic interests to Amanda Seyfried. For Gael to be acting in this film, it had to be a hefty paycheck to convince him. He derides these types of films and more likely did it to make an indie back home in Mexico.

‘Letters to Juliet’ is for women who are looking for their prince charming or are not happy in their own relationship. If you female friend are in this situation, you’re gonna love, love, love this film.