FIRST FEATURE
Yours Sincerely
Have you picked up pen and paper to send a note to someone special lately? Don’t knock snail mail just yet because valuable lessons can be gleaned from them. At least that’s what Hollywood has been trying to sell us
By Joanne Soh
June 25, 2010
Penmanship may soon be considered a lost art in an age where technology and keyboards rule.
I used to be rather proud of my pretty longhand but now, it resembles chicken scratches.
My four-year-old son’s kindergarten teacher recently told me to encourage him to write the conventional way now that he’s learnt how to scribble his ABCs. Hang on. What’s the conventional way of writing? It caught me totally off-guard.
New romantic movie Letters To Juliet, which opens here today, celebrates the increasingly underrated practice of letter-writing and proves it’s still the most romantic way to express yourself.
Starring Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave, it sees women from around the world travelling to Verona, Italy, to leave Aunt Agony-type letters on the wall of the courtyard where Shakespeare’s fictional heroine Juliet Capulet supposedly lived.
Volunteers of Club di Giulietta (Juliet’s Club) patiently reply to all of the handwritten letters to offer counsel or just lend a sympathetic ear.
Sure, it’s not as instant as an e-mail message, SMS or tweet.
But the feelings of anticipation and joy when a letter you’ve been waiting for arrives are incomparable to the ‘You’ve Got Mail’ message that pops up on your PC screen.
I know because somewhere at home, I still have boxes of correspondence from my husband sent during our courtship.
Hollywood, it happens, is turning out to be a good teacher, showing us some life lessons that we can take home from simply taking the time to pen a note,thought or something that you want to leave behind as your legacy.
Lesson 1: Love is patient
Letters To Juliet is said to be inspired by the real-life events of Club di Giulietta members.
Seyfriend’s character Sophie finds a 50-year-old letter, written by a British teen named Claire Smith, to Juliet, detailing how she met Lorenzo, a young and dashing Tuscan boy, how they fell in love and their eventual separation.
Sophie decides to reply to the letter, and amazingly Claire (Redgrave) shows up in Verona with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan) in tow to search for her long-lost Lorenzo (Franco Nero).
What ensues is a road trip around the beautiful Italian countryside which sets the stage for a budding romance between Sophie and Charlie.
This chick flick reminds us of the 2002 Gwyneth Paltrow-Aaron Eckhart romance Possession. It also tells the tale of two people falling in love after Roland (Eckhart) finds a love letter dated more than 150 years ago from a poet to his mistress.
Together with Paltrow’s Maud, they investigate the legitimacy of the affair as the poet was reputed to have been a model of marital fidelity.
The two movies may be filled with cliches about love and destiny, but to see how a heartfelt note can knit two unlikely people together over more than a century is, at times, beautiful.
Incidentally, Redgrave and Nero both fell in love on the set of Camelot (1967) where they played Guinevere and Lancelot. They wed and had a child two years later.
The couple then parted ways but reunited 40 years later and walked down the aisle again on New Year’s Eve of 2006.
A case of art mirroring life? It just goes to show that true love is definitely worth the wait.
Lesson 2: Your soulmate is out there
A note from one tenant to the next leads to two lonely souls, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, becoming penpals in The Lake House (2006).
A series of letters follow, and they find themselves falling in love despite one big problem – she’s living in 2006 and he in 2004.
Never mind the befuddling time-travelling concept, but this ‘long-distance relationship’ is pure. You feel their separation and also connection developing as they converse through their letters.
Thank goodness this couple never resorted to e-mail, which would’ve just ruined the whole effect.
The tension in the last act, where Bullock waits in anxiety and desperation by the letter box, would also not be as suspenseful – let alone climatic – at the end.
We may not have enchanted mailbags, but with a little faith, we can find our kindred spirit.
Lesson 3: You’ll never be alone
P.S. I Love You (2007) teaches us that when the going gets tough, the tough get going – with a little help from beyond the grave.
Hilary Swank is Holly, a young grieving widow who begins to receive letters from her dead husband Gerry (Gerard Butler).
It turns out Gerry wrote them before he died and had arranged for them to be delivered throughout the year.
Thanks to those comforting and cajoling missives, Holly learns to pick herself up and move on.
Never sniff at the gift of mail, even when it comes from the most impossible sources.
Lesson 4: Lives can be saved
Back To The Future (1985) is a classic that tells the story of Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) who is accidentally sent back in time – from 1985 to 1955 in a cool DeLorean, a time-machine created by Doc (Christopher Lloyd).
Besides featuring one of the most awesome gadgets in the history of science fiction films, it also tells us that a note can change the course of history.
Before he makes his way back to 1985, Marty leaves the 1955 Doc a message, warning him of his murder 30 years in the future.
To his dismay, Doc tears up the letter for fear of interfering with destiny. But it’s later revealed that Doc taped back the note and thanks to Marty’s warning, escapes death.
Lesson 5: Letters hurt but also heal
Nicholas Sparks sure knows how to make letter-writing a main focus in his novels-turned-movies.
Take the recent Dear John, where privileged college student Savannah (Seyfried) and Middle East-posted soldier John (Channing Tatum) rely on snail mail to keep the flame burning.
The letters, however, aren’t enough to overcome their separation woes. Savannah eventually sends him a ‘Dear John’ break-up letter.
As the story unfolds, John is touched by a surprise letter from Savannah, prompting him to leave the army and reunite with his ex.
Considered by many as the best adaptation of a Sparks novel, The Notebook (2004) has sent many a woman – and some men – tearing because of its moving moments between star-crossed lovers Allie (Rachel McAdams) and Noah (Ryan Gosling).
One famous scene sees the already-betrothed Allie confronting Noah on why he never wrote to her.
His shocking reply? ‘I wrote you 365 letters. I wrote you every day for a year.’
Of course, we find out later that Allie’s mother had withheld the letters as she deemed Noah unworthy of her daughter.
Parents – they sure can be stumbling blocks to the greatest love story ever told.
Because seriously, how can you turn down a man who faithfully puts down in ink what he feels about you every single day?
The NewPaper