Again With the Movie Review: Letters to Juliet

The free movie of the evening: Letters to Juliet.

I will phrase my review as a tautology, thus: If you like movies like this, you will like this movie.

Because you know what this movie is. Essentially everything you think is going to happen, happens in the fashion which you would expect. 

There was lovely scenery, courtesy of Italy, of the type that always makes me think how very too bad it will be if global climate change turns Europe into a desert. Cause, damn, that Italy has some nice tracts of land, if you know what I mean. I mean, the countryside is very attractive.

So here's the briefly: young woman wanting to be a writer but toiling away in obscurity as a fact-checker is engaged to young man passionate about opening restaurant. Neither seems very passionate about the other. 

We can tell, because they're going to Italy on a "pre-honeymoon" so that the groom can be around to open his restaurant right after the wedding. Also, she doesn't have an engagement ring, because, well, it costs money to open a restaurant and that's more important.

Now, these choices seem perfectly reasonable to me, but since this is a romance movie, it's a sign that the relationship is doomed. Because if you're capable of rational thought, or of deviating from the established romantic plot line even slightly in order to better fit your personal situation, you're not really in love.

Love, real love, grabs you by the scruff of the neck and frogmarches you through that script, damn it!

Love is what we roleplaying geeks like to call a plot hammer.*

Also, true love is not really for money-conscious peasants like you and I (no offense to those among my legions of followers who have piles of money). If you're concerned about the cost of an engagement ring, you're not really in love! Just go into debt for it, or, if you're a woman, have the good sense to fall in love with someone who has piles of money in the first place!

Sorry, that was a bit of a side rant.

Anyway, there's a story here about how people (exclusively women, from what we see) leave the titular letters to Juliet at what's supposedly her house in Verona, and then there are some other women who work for the city as the Secretaries of Juliet and write back to them, and our heroine finds a 50-year-old letter that had been lost and writes back. This inspires the writer, who was so lovesick back then, to--

Well, I suppose I shouldn't completely give away the movie, but let's just say that there's a road trip to find a long-lost love, and another guy who's much blonder than the (blonde) young woman's fiance, and therefore obviously a much better match for her, and lots of scenery and glancing and moments of sharing and talk of destiny.

If you have seen movies before, you are unlikely to be surprised by anything that develops, but you may enjoy it if you enjoy that kind of thing.

I thought it was a bit heavy-handed, and I think my spouse was in physical pain (not to pin him as the stereotypical man who can't sit through a romance movie), so I can't exactly recommend it. But as I say, if you like romances (say, if you liked Nights in Rodanthe), you may get more out of it than we did. ("Think how free it was!" I said afterwards, trying to console him.)

I didn't see any particular health or library connections, although there was plentiful wine. In gorgeous vineyards, even!

*When the games master has a storyline and something painfully obvious comes along to make sure you follow it no matter where you try to go or what you try to do. Say, every single person in town refuses to speak to you except one, or every single door in the whole house is sealed with an unpickable lock except one, or a giant troll with a big hammer says "go that way, dummies."

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