While most people enjoy the weekend as their time away from work, my schedule is a little more awkward. Since Wednesday and Sunday are such busy work days for me, I generally treat Thursday and Friday as my "weekend." Today was definitely one of those days.
The morning started out with a meeting with Chris, the minister of music at First Baptist Church in West Memphis. It was a very informal meeting, but was actually a lot of fun. We got the opportunity to introduce ourselves and play some music together. Of course, when music ministers get together, there will generally be some stories shared between them as well.
After doing some practicing in preparation for another upcoming recital (July 2), I decided to take the afternoon and head to the movies. I have wanted to see Letters to Juliet since it first appeared in theaters and found the film to be quite enjoyable.
Letters to Juliet recounts the story of Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), a fact checker for the New Yorker, who travels to Verona with her fiance for a "pre-honeymoon." While in the city that served as the setting for Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, Sophie visits Juliet's House and witnesses lovesick women from around the world writing letters to Juliet and attaching them to the wall. At the end of the day, Sophie witness one of "Juliet's secretaries" taking the letters away in a basket and beginning the process of replying.
When Sophie finds a letter from the 1950s hidden in the wall, she is moved by the emotion it contains and decides to reply. Her letter reaches a mature Claire (wonderfully portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave) who returns to Italy with her grandson, Charlie (Christopher Egan) in search of her lost love. The friendships that develop between Sophie, Claire and Charlie propel the plot forward to its culmination.
I was very pleased with the acting as a whole, including a wonderful supporting cast whose wit and sense of timing gave the movie much of its charm. While there will probably be no Academy nominations as a result of the project, Redgrave and Egan generated a familial chemistry that made me both believe and sympathize with their situation. I was very pleased to see Christopher Egan's work again. I first became aware of his work on NBC's too-short-lived series Kings. Just as in Robin Hood from a few weeks ago, the Italian landscape was a constant member of the supporting cast. I have always wanted to go to Italy.....now I'm ready to pack my bags and leave tomorrow.
When I first saw the trailer for the film, I knew that it would address the implications of missed romantic love. I expected a nice movie that followed the ordinary path. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were other "missed loves" that were addressed--even if only as a secondary issue--that enhanced the film.
Do I recommend this film for everyone? Probably not. It's your standard "chick flick," but if you are in a nostalgic mood as I was today, there are definitely worse things you could spend your money on in the theaters at the moment.
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