-
Recent releases:
- Mothers' Instinct
- Sweet East, The
- Ghost Busters: Frozen Empire
- Immaculate
- Roaring Twenties, The (reissue)
- Soul
- Dune: part two
- American Star
- Dune: Part 1 (reissue)
- Jerry & Marge Go Large
- Argylle
- Forever Young
- Jackdaw
- All of Us Strangers
- Holdovers, The
- Mean Girls
- Poor Things
- One Life
- Ferrari
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
Letters to Juliet
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael Garcia Bernal, Christopher Egan, Franco Nero, Oliver Platt, Luisa Ranieri, Marina Massironi, Lydia Biondi, Milena Vukotic, Luisa De Santis, Paolo Arvedi, Giordano Formenti
Director: Gary Winick
Dentists and manufacturers of anti-diabetic pharmaceuticals should welcome this glossy tosh with a fanfare. Its super-sugary content is more than enough to rot the most hardened molar and insulin rather than popcorn is recommended.
A New York magazine fact checker - Mamma Mia!s Seyfried (bland as distilled water but at least, thank heavens, she doesnt sing this time) - heads to Verona for a pre-wedding holiday with her restaurateur husband-to-be Bernal (heavy accent, weightless performance). He abandons her for truffle hunts and wine auctions, she finds a wall where devotees of Juliet of Romeo and Juliet fame stick letters asking her for romantic advice, joins the women whose job is to answer the correspondence, discovers a 1957 letter from Redgrave (keeping a straight face in the face of her role and its dumb dialogue) and replies to it. And, lo and behold, Redgrave duly turns up in Verona to seek her long-lost love, accompanied by her grandson Egan (truly awful) and well, you know the rest, even if its hate at first sight between Seyfried and Egan.
The picture postcard scenery (beautifully photographed by Marco Pontecorvo) would make a perfect documentary: unfortunately the dramatic drivel (courtesy of screenwriters Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan), and dreary direction ("A film by" Gary Winick) that accompanies it, has all the depth of scum on a reservoir and much the same entertainment value.
Alan Frank
USA 2010. UK Distributor: E1 Entertainment. Colour.
104 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: PG.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.
Review date: 15 Jun 2010