Upon my first impression of the movie from the trailers, I assumed that Sophie (Seyfried - yes she's playing a character named Sophie again, so if you want to connect it to Mamma Mia for the hell of it, she broke up with Sky and moved to New York. Of course this is completely falsified and the dualcasting as Sophie is a mere coincidence as far as I can tell) worked for the guy that looks like Ryan Philippe (played by Christopher Egan). This was untrue, as I found out that she journeyed to Verona, Italy, with her fiance, Victor, a chef who cares more about the opening of his restaurant than actually caring about his fiancee. There's absolutely no chemistry between the two, and rightfully so, as this movie isn't about them, rather, the relationships between "Juliet"-Sophie and Claire, Claire and the Lorenzo out of many Lorenzos she is trying to look for, and Sophie and Charlie (the grandson).
When Victor goes on his trip some 120 kilometers from Verona, Sophie decides to explore Verona itself. She ends up at "Casa di Giulietta" (Juliet's House) and sees flocks of women writing letters to Juliet (whom else?), and sticking them up on the wall under Juliet's balcony (one woman is seen reenacting Juliet calling out for Romeo on the balcony), leaving with tears in their eyes (even more so as they tear up WHILE writing). Later, all the women have left and Sophie's trying to finish writing her letter to Juliet when a woman carrying a basket walks up to the wall and collects the letters. Sophie follows that lady, past a restaurant and into a building where she finds out the "society" of women who call themselves the Secretaries of Juliet. They take the letters and reply to the ones who have written a return address on them. When the women find out that Sophie is a writer, they immediately take her into their little club and invite her to a family dinner.
The next day, she is collecting letters with one of the secretaries (Isabella) when she discovers the one written fifty years ago by a woman named Claire Smith. It has a return address, so Sophie decides to write a reply, for the hell of it. Because who knows, this old lady might still be alive, and deserves to have a reply.
A few days later, Charlie, Claire's grandson, shows up basically telling Sophie, "WTF were you thinking, woman?! Are you daft?" because he's British and thinks Sophie's weird for using "OMG" and "Awesome" in the same sentence. She stalks him afterwards, to Juliet's house, and wall, only to meet Claire herself. After spending a short time together, perhaps a couple of days or so, they set out on the journey to find the Lorenzo B...some last name I can't spell (Bottolini?) so Claire can confront him and apologize for being such a coward. With Sophie's Victor away on his business discoveries, Sophie has nothing else to do and spends the rest of her vacation with Claire and Charlie at a resort, searching for many men within a 1000 kilometer radius for THE Lorenzo.
Of course, Charlie and Sophie don't get along well at first, but this is also their romance movie so they're gonna get together anyway. Charlie doesn't know that Sophie's mother chose to leave her when Sophie was nine years old, and Charlie's parents died in a car crash when he was ten, so he assumes Sophie doesn't know anything about loss. It makes Sophie really upset, so at the resort, Claire checks on Sophie to see if she's okay, and the next day, she makes her grandson apologize, after she explains about Sophie's parents. Charlie realizes that they're not that different from each other in the sense of feeling loss.
In the background music of the movie are Italian versions of classic songs people may know, such as "Quando, Quando, Quando", "I'm A Believer", and the regular version of Taylor Swift's, "Love Story." Of course that latter one was obvious because it was the main theme used in the teaser trailers.
That night, Claire looks out her window and espies Charlie and Sophie laying on the grass at the resort and looking at the stars. They make out, Grandma notices, and schemes to set the two of them up together. This is the night before they decide to head back to Verona. In that morning, Claire finds the vineyard that she and Lorenzo loved to visit. She convinces Charlie to turn into there, and while he drives, Claire notices "Lorenzo" - which is actually Lorenzo's grandson, also named Lorenzo, and is a spitting image of Claire's true love. So Lorenzo III has a father, Lorenzo II, and II tells the group that Lorenzo I went out on a ride and will be coming back shortly. So when Lorenzo I shows up, he knows instantly that it's Claire come back to find him and they fall madly in love again.
Sophie realizes that she doesn't fit into the picture and that she has to get back to Victor. Lorenzo II drives her back to the city, and Claire scolds Charlie for not being a gentleman and going after her because they're in love with each other. So he speeds off to Verona, leaving his grandmother in the countryside with her true love (where she rightfully belongs) and drives to the pensione Sophie is staying at.
What I noticed is that he's driving in the countryside, where the roads are made of dirt. His car is getting dirty. Once his car is back in Verona, it's friggen shiny. When did Charlie find time to wash his car before chasing after his girl?
Well, he gets to Sophie's balcony and sees her hugging her fiance (and what Charlie doesn't know is that she isn't feeling anything for Victor anymore) so he leaves.
The next scene we see is that Sophie's back in New York, showing her story (about Claire and the journey to find Lorenzo) to her boss at the New Yorker, who says he's gonna publish it. She's excited and heads to Victor's restaurant to tell him about the good news. Victor doesn't care, though. He says congratulations and that it's great, but he's more focused on the opening of his restaurant. Sophie's disappointed at this attitude and later on she goes back to work, where there are a few letters for her. One of them happens to be an invitation to Claire & Lorenzo's wedding. Deciding to go, alone, she breaks it off with Victor and heads back to Italy for the wedding, which is that Saturday. It makes me wonder if Claire and Lorenzo planned to marry that same week, but it also depends on how much time it would take to create a small restaurant and have it nearly readied in time for the grand opening, seeing as in between takes - the first time Sophie goes to Victor when she finds her story is gonna be published, the restaurant is still unfinished, and when the invitation is received, the restaurant is finished and active.
Either way, she gets back to Italy, thinks Charlie is with an old girlfriend (Patricia), and at the reception, Claire reads out the letter reply she got from Sophie, because without that letter, nobody would be at the wedding and there would have been no wedding at all. In the midst of this all, Sophie looks at Charlie, and Charlie is watching her as well. She tears up enough after the letter and decides to leave the party. Charlie rushes after her and the entire wedding reception is watching the whole thing. Like, seriously, their attention completely goes to the young couple and not the newlyweds. By the time Charlie gets to the house, Sophie is nowhere in sight, but she appears at the balcony (of course!) as Charlie calls her out and they declare their love for each other. He pulls a Romeo, climbing the vines of the house to get to Sophie on the balcony. Unfortunately, he falls and hits the grass. Sophie runs downstairs to check on him, they make out, and the newly married old couple goes to check on them. So does the whole wedding reception (everyone's running to see what's going on) and the movie ends.
So that is my synopsis and here's my review: Vanessa Redgrave is a classic actress. Her character's age of 65 does not stop her from adventuring around a 1000km radius around Verona to find her long-lost love. She is very caring and very funny. Charlie's a pompous ass, a sensible guy who doesn't believe that there is a "true love" but it's because he's been dealing with loss all his life - first the death of his parents, secondly the memory of the turbulent-yet-dead relationship with his ex, Patricia. The Patricia we see him with at the wedding is a different Patricia, his cousin. It confuses Sophie at first because she thinks Charlie was dating his own cousin ("How is that legal?") and Charlie laughs, realizing his mistake and her confusion.
Sophie, we find at the beginning of the movie, is a "fact finder." We see her trying to contact a guy who appeared in the end-of-World War II picture (a guy in the background witnessing the kiss between a soldier and a nurse, to confirm that it was a spontaneous kiss and not staged). This sets the stage for what her role is in the movie - a people-finder and a writer. Victor, even as a fiance, is just a guy in the background. Basically he's there for filler, and a reason for Sophie to be in Verona on vacation (her pre-honeymoon, in which neither of them actually spent time together, which is pretty damn sad). At some points, I thought he was gay, based on his reactions to eating food (the motions he make are kinda flamboyant).
The movie also tells us that Sophie's dad is alive, though we never meet him or any of her family, so we don't know where he is.
Italy is pretty damn beautiful. Everything in the movie screams "Tuscany" and alludes to it as well, though Verona is not actually IN the Tuscany area. Vineyards of every sort are shown, and "old-world" cities preserved for centuries are still there. The fact that Sophie intended for her and Victor to have a vacation and the reality of them not actually having a vacation together sucks, and shows that Victor's just really unattentive, and the two just do their own thing apart from each other, which isn't how a couple is supposed to act on a honeymoon or vacation. She wants him to take her sightseeing at all the romantic places, but he's just taking her on business trips so he can find suppliers for his new restaurant.
The chemistry between Sophie and Charlie is there, but other reviewers say "not really." I just thought the way they reacted to each other, post-hatred was pretty good. They're characters that barely know each other, yet spend a lot of time together due to the search for Granny's "The One." Makes us wonder how long their relationship will actually last, though in the end he says he's ready to give up London if she doesn't wanna move. Like any other new relationship, they're nervous because they've only known each other for a week or so, later on finding that they belong together.
I would want to get this on DVD but it's only gonna be watched a few more times before I get bored. If you want to escape your mundane life and go on a "vacation," this movie would give you a taste of Italy (same with Under the Tuscan Sun if you're not feeling the Romeo/Juliet vibe). So if you haven't seen it in the movie theater yet, do so before it leaves.
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