Directed by: Augustine Frizzell
Starring: Felicity Jones, Shailene Woodley, Callum Turner, Joe Alwyn, Ben Cross, Nabhaan Rizwan
The Last Letter from Your Lover doesn't cover much new ground. It doesn't need to. It is a relief to watch an unabashedly romantic movie with love letters, misunderstandings, proud romantic gestures and declarations, and finally a happy ending. No one is hit by a car and killed while on his way to the rendezvous point where lovers separated by years will finally reunite. Thank goodness for tiny miracles.
The Last Letter from Your Lover takes its cliches and turns them into time-honored traditions. There isn't much here we haven't seen before. But, we don't care because what's done here is done well. The Last Letter begins in the present day with Ellie (Jones), a journalist for a small London newspaper who stumbles across handwritten love letters in the paper's archives. Correspondence circa 1965 between "J" and "Boot" is filled with sincere expressions of emotion straight out of romance novels. Ellie discovers J is Jennifer (Woodley), an American socialite married to stuffy Lawrence (Alwyn), who regards her as more of a prop than a wife. She's great to show off at parties and dinners, but tender moments are in scarce supply. While on holiday in France, Jennifer starts a fiery affair with journalist Anthony O' Hare (Turner), who adores the ground she walks on. Jennifer falls for Anthony as well, but is hesitant to leave her husband.
However, when Jennifer first appears onscreen, she is returning home from the hospital with amnesia, a scar on her face, and with hubby in tow. It is told she was in a horrific car wreck and we piece together she was on her way to the train station to run away with Anthony (aka Boot) to New York. Jennifer wants to piece her life together again, but Lawrence is less than helpful and lies about a crucial piece of information concerning Anthony. Meanwhile in the present day, Ellie, who has no use for romance, begins an awkward relationship with Rory (Rizwan), the paper's stern archives overseer who insists Ellie fill out the correct forms to retrieve even something seemingly trivial. But Ellie (played with pluck by Jones), wants to find out what happened between Jennifer and Anthony, and even goes through the trouble of trying to reunite the reluctant former lovers.
I found myself wrapped up in the seemingly doomed (or at least very delayed) romance between Jennifer and Anthony. The way Woodley and Turner passionately express themselves with body language and glances makes all the difference between the silly and the sublime. The Last Letter is not going to win points for originality or unpredictability and that's perfectly okay. What matters is how much we find we are involved in the stories and would love nothing more than to see it wind up happily for all. That's when you know it works.
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