A Balcony Dweller's Inspiration

How sugary-sweet is Letters to Juliet?  So dolce in fact that I'm surprised I didn't get a toothache by the movie's (ridiculously predictable) end!  People Magazine called Letters to Juliet a "cinematic wish-fulfillment fantasy composed as a sonnet" and I have to agree.  However, this romantic modern day fairy-tale's over-the-top moments is precisely what makes this movie so delizioso.

Letters to Juliet is based on the book Letters to Juliet: Celebrating Shakespeare's Greatest Heroine, the Magical City of Verona, and the Power of Love.  More interestingly, Juliet Capulet, of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, is responding to love letters from the grave!  More accurately, her secretaries are.  That's right.  For more than 70 years, a group of about 15 "secretaries," the Club di Giulietta, all volunteers from Verona, have collected the notes from the wall at Juliet's house and the letters that arrive in the mail by the thousands, and then they write back, dividing the letters up according to their languages and romantic problems.  The letters contain requests for everything from matchmaking help to kissing tips to advice on how to mend a broken heart.

Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia, Dear John) is Sophie, a fact-checker for The New Yorker and a hopeless romantic who travels to Verona with her wildly clueless chef fiance played by Gael Garcia Bernal (whom, even though Sophie and her quest take a backseat to his business, I have trouble disliking as he spends the entire movie doing nothing but sampling exquisite Italy vino and eating pasta and cheese), stumbles upon the secretaries to Juliet, and decides to answer a 50-year-old letter she finds. Enter Vanessa Redgrave (her first film since the death of her daughter Natasha Richardson a year ago) who shows up as the letter writer accompanied by her snooty yet charming grandson played by Australian cutie Christopher Egan.  They set out along the dazzling back roads of Tuscany to find Lorenzo, her Italian long-lost love from half a century earlier.

SPOILER ALERT! In the end, Redgrave's character finds her Lorenzo (played by real-life hubby Franco Nero) and they get married, Sophie finds true love with not-so snooty and perfectly charming grandson, and her story gets published in The New Yorker on her first try.  An endearing trifecta for a happily-ever-after!

If you, dear reader, are like myself in that you are a hopeful romantic with a slight obsession for the beautifully tragic story of two star-crossed lovers and are easily seduced by mass-appeal love stories then you will undoubtedly shed a few tears.  Whether, later, you will admit it to your friends is up to you.

Regardless, you will want to book a flight to Verona ASAP!