"Letters to Juliet" - in theaters

When I went to see this movie I was in dire need of a chick flick and this totally fit the bill.

Before we begin though, I would like to state for the record that the premise of this movie is somewhat ridiculous. The story goes that desperate women in need of romantic advice pen notes to Juliet (of Romeo and Juliet fame) asking for her help. This is ludicrous simply because Juliet is probably the last person that I would turn to for romantic advice. Sure, she found her true love and got married, but less than a week later, she kills herself. How is that a healthy display of what love should be, huh? I don't get it...

However, I did enjoy this movie, that obvious annoyance aside. The film revolves around Sophie (played by Amanda Seyfried), a fact-checker who wishes she were a writer for the New Yorker, who travels to Verona with her chef/restaurant-opening fiancee Victor (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) on a pre-honeymoon. But alas, Victor is too preoccupied with the copious amounts of fantastic food and wine to pay too much attention to Sophie, who wanders aimlessly around the city. By a lucky happenstance, she volunteers with the Secretaries of Juliet, who answer all of the letters that the unfortunate romantics leave at Juliet's family home. It's there that Sophie finds a 50 year old letter, written by Clare, whom she decides to write back.

Due to the nature of the letter, Clare (Vanessa Redgrave) comes over to Italy with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan) in order to find her lost love, and Sophie ends up tagging along on the journey. And who would have thunk it, but sparks fly between Charlie and Sophie, who grapples with a guilty conscience about Victor but can't ignore the pull of her heartstrings.

Sounds disgusting, right? But disgusting in an awesome way.

Vanessa Redgrave made this movie. She was incredibly charming and vulnerable, and Italian men simply flocked to her in a manner that was a little insane. Christopher Egan was uptight in the beginning, as he was supposed to be, but by the end, he was a British teddy bear. I didn't care for Victor, who was a total douche, but was supposed to be, so well played by Gael Garcia. And I've been a fan of Amanda Seyfried since "Veronica Mars", so it there's really no argument that I enjoyed her performance here.

So on the CWeave scale of 1 to 10, I would give this movie a 7.5. I got the warm and fuzzies while watching, but there could have been a little more heat between Charlie and Sophie. Needless to say, I'll probably own this one when it comes out on DVD.