I was in one of those tired, end of the day moods where you just watch TV, no matter what’s on. I depressingly found myself watching traffic cops (which is surprisingly entertaining), followed by a film called ‘The Love Letter’ (1999). Now before you judge me, this isn’t the kind of film I would usually watch, but I only have five channels and at one point three of which were news, so that puts you in my position.
The beginning of the film starts with idyllic shots of a coastal, rustic American town. Until Helen MacFarquhar (Kate Capshaw) the protagonist of this seemingly typical romance film bounds into screen (literally, if you’ve seen it you’ll know what I mean), as she jogs along a beach. Helen is a middle aged, recently divorced woman who works in a bookshop. Oh and at the beginning of the film she sends her daughter off to a summer camp, so as you can see all loose ends are conveniently tied up early on. Helen is instantly shown to be hostile to her colleagues at the charming bookshop she owns, but she soon stumbles upon the love letter that is mixed in with her mail, so she naturally assumes its for her, But you ask yourself the inevitable question the question is who is it from? The letter seems to act as a catalyst for an emotional change in her.
Initially she thinks its from her old friend George the fireman (Tom Selleck), but then goes on to think its the new worker in the bookshop, the college student Johnny (Tom Everett Scott). Helen is having dinner with Johnny and as she moves two wine glasses the love letter, again conveniently falls out of her bag. So Johnny reads it and thinks its written from her to him. Shocking I know! Over the coming weeks Johnny and Helen develop a love affair.
The letter eventually finds its way again to the bookstore. Helen’s manager, Janet Hall (Ellen Degeneres) also arrives. At this point Helen hasn’t told Janet about the letter just yet. While Helen is elsewhere working George comes in with new smoke detectors for the bookshop. As Janet is accepting them from the entrance to the counter collapses, the smoke alarms go everywhere. In all the chaos, the letter is mixed in with the instruction manuals for the smoke detectors. George, being the safety conscious fireman he is, before leaving says “Make sure you read the manuals first.” Janet opens the manual, and the love letter falls out. She reads it and thinks it is from George. Later that day, Janet rushes over to tell Helen about the letter. Helen tells Janet it’s her letter, this lead to an argument, which leads to Janet quitting as manger.
Ellen Gegeners as Janet the fun loving bookshop manager is the best thing to come out of this film. Unlike other actors in the film she was consistently good from beginning to end. Kate Capshaw was up and down and I hate to say it but Tom Everett Scott was consistently bad…almost comically so. It seemed a shame as I feel it withdrew from the emotional scenes what should probably be a romance films strongest area. This was show cased by the cringe worthy scene where Helen and Johnny are dancing…in their underwear.
In the end I found this film to be endearing and encapsulating. Although at times it was a bit predictable and things did keep happening conveniently (as I keep saying), which seemed like a slightly patchy way to string the story together. As a whole I would say it did what it says on the romance film…tin, it had lots of emotive face shots, good looking people and lots of people crying. As I said, I strangely enjoyed it, but the final shot of the film was horrific, the love letter being blown out the window and over the ocean, it felt like a bit of a sour taste to a decent meal.
