At least it's a picturesque tour of the agricultural area surrounding Siena, Italy... This saccharine, predictable little fable boasts a reunion of sorts between a notorious pair from the 60s: Franco Nero (working non-stop in Italy since 1962) and Vanessa Redgrave ("Atonement") who met while filming "Camelot." To the delight of the tabloids of the day, they had a son together. Most of you are too young to remember Guinevere and Lancelot, but I got a kick out of seeing them share the screen again, after all these years.
Little Known Fact: There is an actual group of women who reply to letters tucked in a wall by distraught lovers at Juliet's grave site in Verona, Italy. As we all know, Romeo's Juliet is fictitious, but in Verona tourism pays well, so I guess if your heart's broken...
In this contrived plot, our heroine, played by Amanda Seyfried ("Dear John") has gone to Italy with her ebullient fiancé, played by Gael García Bernal ("Motorcycle Diaries") who is opening his own restaurant in New York City. I have never seen Bernal so energetic, upbeat and delightful; his English is excellent and he comes across as extremely articulate and appealing. Because he is busy calling on his future wine, cheese and olive oil suppliers, she is at loose ends and discovers the wall with those "Letters to Juliet." The upshot is, she stumbles onto a 50-year-old letter that had never been found, so she sends a reply.
Lo and behold, within days the letter writer, now almost 70, turns up with her grandson, blandly played by Christopher Egan ("Crush"); she is hoping for a second chance with the Italian man she rejected 50 years ago.
The search commences....
One question: Aren't Seyfried's 15 minutes up yet?
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