Letters to Juliet - 2 1/2 stars

This one is a tough call. I could have gone 3 stars, but we'll just stick with 2 1/2.

Amanda Seyfried and Gael Garcia Bernal are engaged. She is a fact checker for New York Magazine and he is a chef who is about to open his own restaurant. They go on a pre-honeymoon to Italy where he manages to keep finding ways to do things she doesn't want to do, like visit food distributors and wine tasting. For him, the trip is basically a business trip.

She discovers the home of Juliet, from Romeo and Juliet. Since she was a fictional character, I'm not exactly sure how there is a home of Juliet, but nevermind. Lovesick girls go to the wall outside Juliet's home and leave letters for Juliet. These letters are all about their relationships, and I guess these women would rather write to a fictional character than, I don't know, an advice columnist. I can understand kids writing letters to Santa, but adult women writing to a fictional character? Whatever.

A group of women known as the secretaries of Juliet go to the wall and collect these letters. I guess the women leave their return addresses on the letters, because the secretaries write back. I don't know who pays these women, or why they do it for free, but Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) ends up befriending the women. Since she has so much free time while her fiance is busy doing his thing, she starts working with the women. That's just what I like to do when I'm on vacation - work.

One day she finds a 50 year old letter hidden in the wall. It was written by a woman named Claire, and in the letter she says she is going to leave the Italian she is in love with and return to London, since her parents wouldn't approve of him. Well, Sophie decides this is just too good to pass up, and she writes back. Of course the letter finds Claire - it's only been 50 years. Either she lives in her parents' house, or she was always very diligent about forwarding her mail.

In the letter, Sophie says Claire should return to Italy and find the guy. She doesn't stop to consider that maybe Claire is happily married or dead, or about the Italian guy's status. But Claire does follow the instructions, and she brings her grandson along. When the grandson Charlie first meets Sophie, they fight. This means that according to the rules of romantic comedy, they will fall in love before the movie is over. This is one place the movie lost me. I was hoping that Sophie would remain with her finace, and the movie would be about Claire, but no. Typical chick flick stuff.

Also, the setup takes a good 20 minutes or so, and it is rather boring. But when Claire enters the picture, it gets much better. Claire is played by the great Vanessa Redgrave, and as soon as she comes on screen, the movie just becomes alive. Her scenes are funny and she makes you fall in love with her right away. As I look through her filmography, I realize that I haven't seen many of her movies, and most of those have been supporting performances. I just might have to rent some of her old movies now.

The rest of the movie is of the three of them traveling around Italy, looking for her lost love. His name is Lorenzo Bartolini, which is a problem, since that is Italy's version of John Anderson. There are tons of them. Obviously Sophie could use her fact checking skills, jump on the internet, and determine the most likely candidate(s), based on what Claire can tell her. But then we wouldn't have a movie. They look up the name, plot them on a map, and go door to door meeting many Lorenzos along the way.

I'm not going to spoil it and tell you whether she finds her Lorenzo, whether he is single, or even alive. I already spoiled what happens with Sophie, but that was obvious as soon as Charlie entered the movie. But the movie is worth seeing for Vanessa Redgrave's performance alone. She has a way of making her lines funny and heartwarming at the same time.

I can't recommend it to everyone, but if the idea of an old woman trying to reconnect with a love from 50 years ago tugs on your heartstrings, you will probably enjoy it.