Letters to Juliet is a film by Gary Winick and stars Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Egan, Gael García Bernal and Vanessa Redgrave.
Plot:
Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) travels with her fiancé Victor (Gael García Bernal) to Verona, for a honeymoon in advance. Unfortunately Victor spends most of his time buying food and wines for his restaurant in New York, while Sophie gets caught up with the letters women write to Juliet (as in Romeo and) for their love problems. She finds a letter that has been there for fifty years, about a woman too afraid to meet the men she loved, answers it and the next thing you know is that said woman, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) is in Verona with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan) to find the long-lost love.
The movie is exactly as you’d think: cheesy, shallow, nice landscape, a few laughs. Actually, it does pretty well for itself most of the time, not taking itself too seriously, but then along comes the ending and all the effort is blown to pieces…
[SPOILERS]
The story… there’s no need to talk about the story. I mean, we all know what’s going to happen and it happens exactly that way. It’s all very sweet and romantic and a little too much. At least, they mostly acknowledge this stuff. I mean, when Lorenzo (the long-lost-love) is finally found, he enters the scene riding a horse. In slow motion. Lateron, the horse is actually referred to as his white steed. I mean, they can not be serious about that, right?
With other things, though, it seemed like they were serious. Like when Sophie comes to Juliet’s house for the first time and there’s legions of women sitting in that courtyard, crying their eyes out while they write their letters. Or Sophie is just standing around,basically, with a note book in her hand and immediately someone makes the conlusion, “So, you’re a writer!”
Yeah… the dialogue in general was mostly cringeworthy. But the worst line* was in the last minute, completely ruining the film:
[Charlie falls from a balcony. Of course.]
Sophie: Are you alright? Can you move?
Charlie: Only my lips.
[They kiss while all wedding guests come running.]
Seriously, people. When somebody falls down from a height and then tells you that he can only move his lips, do not kiss him. Call a doctor.
Generally speaking, the movie could have done with a little tightening and better pacing. But what they did really well was the whole story with Victor. I mean, Gael García Bernal is delightful and the way their relationship and their break-up is handled worked really well for me.
Summarising: you can totally miss it.
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*Though that line was great runner up:
Charlie: So, my grandmother had lost her son and I had lost my parents.
[No kidding? What a coincidence! Weird, how life works out that way…]
kalafudra's Stuff 
This is why I haven’t watched it yet, I expected it to kind of be this way and it really isn’t my kind of thing. But you’ve nicely highlighted that even the cringeworthy parts can be laughed at, so maybe some time when I’m finding it hard to sleep and need a film to put me to sleep haha
That’s pretty much the only way you can enjoy the film. You’ll probably need to get drunk, too.
To be fair, if somebody is “just” standing around with a notebook, it’s not that unreasonable to conclude that they’re either some form of writer or some form of hipster, and the hipster would probably call his/herself a writer anyway :) .
And LOL@the last line. Although I don’t think that would “ruin” the whole movie for me, or anything. I have a high threshold for cheesiness :) .
Well, maybe if they were writing in said notebook. If they are just standing there with a notebook in hand, it could be anything – a sketchbook, notes for class, a collection of recipes, what have you.
But maybe I’m being too harsh. [Good point on the hipster, btw. :)]
If it had been the only cheesy line in the film, maybe. But as it was, it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.