Letters to Juliet (No Spoilers)

Finally my exams are almost over which meant that yesterday I had the chance to go and see a film! Firstly, the cinema itself was amazing. I mean, it's my local cinema but thanks to Orange Wednesdays and teen tickets we only had to pay £2.35 each, madness!

Now, onto the film review.
It doesn't include spoilers, just the basic plot line and obvious happenings.


In my own words, the film was based on the story of an elder woman who goes on a hunt for her love from 50 years ago, thanks to the 'Secretaries of Juliet'. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is on what is supposed to be a romantic pre-wedding holiday with her fiancée. Unfortunately for her her fiancée is probably the most infuriating man you will ever come across, he is obsessed with his food and wine, so much so that he spends the whole of the holiday talking of "Win-win" situations where he gets to go to wine auctions and Sophie does whatever she likes. Romantic... yeah.

Therefore Sophie goes exploring the area they're staying in and comes across a wall where hundreds of girls come every day and leave letters "To Juliet". Four voluntary women then pick up the letters in a basket and reply to every single one of them. Sophie soon gets herself involved and finds a letter in the wall that has been there for 50 years. So what does she do? She replies of course.

A few days later a young man, Charlie (Chris Egan), turns up at the doorstep of the Secretaries of Juliet clearly not particulary happy about the fact that his grandma, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), has received this letter and is now keen to find Lorenzo again. The rest of the film highlights Claire, Charlie and Sophie's search for the real Lorenzo in and around Verona, leading to quite hilarious results as they meet the maddest Lorenzo's on their way.

One thing that, in my opinion, was brilliant about this film were the relationships. Claire was a fascinating, lovely character who somewhat teased her grandson, Charlie. Charlie and Sophie's relationship started off as a mutual disliking which is absolutely full of sarcasm (and some great lines!) but as you can guess... developed somewhat. Now being a hopeless romantic I absolutely loved this film. I knew from the trailer that I would because it's a sweet story of their search for this man who Claire left 50 years ago, it shows the hope that Claire and Sophie both have in comparison to Charlie's complete pessimism and it's a genuinely funny film.

I think the message in the trailer just about sums the film up "The greatest love story told... is your own". Just re-watching that trailer made me remember quite how lovely a film it is, it's really one of those films that makes you feel a lot happier although if you hate romance kinda films, probably not your thing!

Can I also say that the acting really was great. I thought Amanda Seyfried was amazing in Mamma Mia so I had high expectations for this and Chris Egan was brilliant, I especially love it when foreigners use typical English accents!

Now, if you're interested, or even if you're not, here's the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP2V4mt4XWQ

8.5/10