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In 'Juliet,' local ritual propels a larger truth: Opposites attract

John Sayles once told me that to write stronger supporting characters, he tries to imagine them as leads in their own separate movie.

Luisa Ranieri, Milena Vukotic, Lidia Biondi and Marina Massironi star in "Letters to Juliet." (John Johnson/Summit Entertainment)
Luisa Ranieri, Milena Vukotic, Lidia Biondi and Marina Massironi star in "Letters to Juliet." (John Johnson/Summit Entertainment)Read more

John Sayles once told me that to write stronger supporting characters, he tries to imagine them as leads in their own separate movie.

I thought of Sayles' method while watching "Letters To Juliet," a purported comedy that had me mentally following minor characters off screen, wondering if their lives might be more interesting than what was happening on it.

The too-sappy "Juliet" stars Amanda Seyfried in full "Mamma Mia" mode as Sophie, a romance-ready Yank in a pretty Euro setting (Verona and Tuscany). While her preoccupied chef/fiancé (Gael Garcia Bernal) is off exploring cuisine and wine, she becomes fascinated by a local ritual. Lovelorn young women write letters to Shakespeare's Juliet, and a group of Italian ladies answer them, as if Juliet were the Santa Claus of love.

Sophie befriends the group, and when she finds a letter from 1957 she answers it, becoming part of a quest by an English grandmother (Vanessa Redgrave) to find the Italian boy she nervously jilted so long ago.

This to the dismay of the old woman's grandson, a central casting British fop (Christopher Egan) who doesn't believe in love, in Americans, in Italians, in frivolity of any kind. He and young Sophie are polar opposites, and we all know what happens to polar opposites in romantic comedies.

It is not a slam to say that "Juliet" is predictable. The rigidness of the formula is part of the genre - a necessary ingredient, in fact. The problem with "Juliet" is there is no pleasure in watching Seyfried or Egan do their prescribed dance - repulsion, attraction, consummation, which occurs as Taylor Swift's Romeo and Juliet-inspired "Love Story" blares in the background. (Run, boyfriends, run for you lives!)

The leads seem less compelling than the folks around them. Bernal's character, for instance, begins to lose Sophie because he's consumed by what he's learning about food in Tuscany. I didn't care whether Sophie and her British beau got together, but did wonder: How did Bernal's restaurant turn out? I'd like to eat there.

Also, one of the Juliet's letter writers is a tall, stunning Italian brunette in the statuesque Sophia Loren tradition, apparently single.

I think a movie about her love life is in order.

Produced by Mark Canton, directed by Gary Winick, written by Jose Rivera, Rim Sullivan, music by Andrea Guerra.