I was used to adoring France as a country, and Paris too -the city of love, fashion, history and arts. If I were asked what would be the first country I would love to spend a week or two, France would be the answer without hesitation. A safe answer, one would say. It's expected. Who doesn't love to go to France?
So all this time I've been truly eyeing France until this latest romantic flick caught my interest and made me take a glimpse on another European country, Italy.
Call me corny and cheezy and a hopeless romantic but this film's trailer made us add the film 'Letters To Juliet' to our long list of movie bucket list. So everytime we go to the mall, we would check out the movie schedule, waiting for it. From 'coming soon', to 'next picture'...gosh I can't believe we're waiting for a film other than the last two installments of Harry Potter! And this film's music video, starring Taylor Swift's single, 'Love Story', really made us want to see this film as soon as possible (and also made me want to go to Italy!).
Basically that music video says it all, you can save yourself from spending for a movie ticket if you ask me. The plot's simple, everything's predictable and yes you can expect a happy ending for the Juliet in the film (which is quite contrary to Shakepeare's classic Romeo and Juliet story).
Until today, we finally got to watch it. And I wasn't disappointed with the film :)
Why did I like the movie? It was simple, no complications and yet the emotions are still there. The plot's generally direct, no surprises, yet it doesn't discourage me from watching the film till the end since I was more interested with the flow of events, like how the feelings and attraction between Sophie and Charlie started brewing up from the first time they saw and dislike each other in a cute way. How Charlie's starting to be nice to Sophie with his really lame attempts to ask her out to dinner or to a city stroll. Yes, I'm a sucker for leading men who are rough, rude and ill-mannered at the start yet throughout the story you can see them change and become unexpectedly nice and romantic HAHA :)) Their dialogs and lines are also cute and funny, some are lame though, yet it still managed to paint a crescent smile on my face (I also laughed when Charlie said something about New York being overrated). Also, Sophie's fiance's for me is one of the clowns in the story despite being a total jerk, from being obsessed with pasta, wine and food to rather excellently speaking in contradiction to Sophie like "It's horrible not seeing you but I don't mind" (something like this).
letting Sophie taste his 'masterpiece :))
Another thing why I like the movie is well their emotions kind of got through me since I happen to be a little teary-eyed during the cemetery scene. Yes, lame, getting teary-eyed for a romantic flick but I couldn't help it since they were talking about sensitive topics such as death and love. Romantic flick or not, as long as I got teary-eyed or it made me laugh 'till my stomach's hurting, that's a good movie for me.
I also like movies where I can learn something from them, such as one country's culture, trivias and other interesting facts which you don't normally encounter in an everyday classroom setting. For this movie, I learned about Verona, in particular the existence of Juliet's wall and her secretaries called the Club di Giuletta, and that also of the place 23 Via Capello. Yes, the thing about them dividing the letters according to language and romantic problems is also true. Also, the film also mentioned about Italy being a home to the best wines, cheese and other food Victor (Sophie's fiance) never failed to mention in the story.
the wall where lovers write a letter to Juliet
And the ice cream scene was just so sweet which really made me want to put ice cream on someone else's face :)))
cheeziest and sweetest scene in the film :)
What I not failed to notice is the story's emphasis on the fact that this thing called love seem to transcend cultural and geographical boundaries, that everyone could actually speak this language despite their own native tongues. Look at Charlie's grandmother and his Lorenzo Bartolini. She's British and Lorenzo's Italian. Same thing goes with Sophie and Charlie -a Newyorker ended up with a British native. The two couple aims to better highlight the universality of this four-letter-word feeling, as shown by the letters to Juliet received from different parts of the world.
Never mind the corny ending, from climbing balconies to the use of a bunch of adverbs to describe one's feelings and the lame misunderstanding ("there were two Patricias!". Still, I recommend this film if you just want to unwind, entertain yourself or reconnect with your hopeless romantic side (haha). To begin with, the story's really not centered on how lovely the city of Verona is but it's rather on something that up 'till now still sells despite the corny factor: destiny and love. What are the odds of you finding your soulmate or true love since you happen to be in the right place at the right time?
From here, 'Letters To Juliet' join the ranks of 'The Notebook', 'The Proposal', 'Step Up, 'She's The Man' and all the other decent romantic flicks out there.
From here, Italy, the city of Verona, Milan, Venice, and Rome joins the list of my top places I would love to visit someday.
From here, I'll begin to acknowledge that some things are really not just a coincidence, that life was meant to surprise us and we all have our moments in our lives where we want to say "Grazie Destino!" out loud. But of course finding a 50-yr old letter that would change your life or realizing during your pre-honeymoon that your fiance's not the right guy for you isn't the only surprising thing in the world so I say let's keep the door open :)
And yeah. France, like New York, might be overrated. :))
