Download The Last Letter From Your Lover; movie review

Written By Kang Cepi Sunday, October 24, 2021 Add Comment

THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER

Cert 12A

109 mins

BBFC advice: Contains infrequent strong language, moderate sex, sex references

If newspaper newsrooms looked anything like the one portrayed in The Last Letter From Your Lover I would have remained in the industry.

Here there are so many staff, they sit cheek by jowl and they evidently have so much time to write stories, they can just swan off and research on their own for days if not weeks.

There is even a librarian who has the authority to demand time slots from the journalists who don't appear remotely concerned by deadlines.

Mrs W consistently rolls her eyes when I am exasperated by movie portrayals of journalists.

But I can't fathom why basic detail isn't important to many producers and directors in the way that it was with such brilliant pictures as Spotlight, The Post and All the President's Men.

The overly romantic notion of my former industry is not the only mark missed by Augustine Frizzell's film - its storyline is hampered by jarring presentation and its characters fail to engender empathy.

Shailene Woodley is its star - a wealthy businessman's young wife who is suffering from amnesia after a car crash.

Gradually she tries to piece together her life before the crash, aided by a love letter which she discovers in a book.

Spin on 40 years and flighty journalist (Felicity Jones) is given the assignment of writing an obituary for her paper.

She takes her research to the archive where she breaks down the guard of the stickler-for-rules librarian (Nabhaan Rizwan).

Within the files, she finds love letters from Woodley's character and a former writer (Callum Turner) and, as all reporters on deadlines do, she simply wanders off on a reverie to link the two together.

The history takes the audience to the French Riviera, or Italian coast or some other posh Mediterranean place where 60s women wore Isabella Duncan scarves.

Ok, The Last Letter From Your Lover is a chic flick and I am an old fella who tends not to lay my coat across puddles.

But I can recognise decent writing in any genre and it doesn't feature here.

Not to mention the miscasting. In my opinion, Woodley and Jones could have switched characters and the film would have been considerably better off.

At least there was a good soundtrack to offset the poppycock.

Reasons to watch: If you are in need of a chick flick

Reasons to avoid: Gushing storyline, poorly told

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 3.5/10

Did you know? The film's vintage London train scenes were shot in the county of Leicestershire, England, at the Quorn & Woodhouse station of the Great Central Railway.

The final word. Felicity Jones: “It’s totally a film I would sit down and watch with a glass of wine. It has the sweep of an old-fashioned romantic film. Those kinds of films are few and far between these days.” i