Hello everyone, it is I, your Feisty Indian Aunty who just watched The Last Letter from Your Lover with much sadness and regret. I am a die-hard romantic who will watch and read anything that deals with romance, and passion, and hopefully a happy ending.
This movie sees a budding young journalist, Ellie (Felicity Jones), who, when forced to write an article about the demise of her editor, discovers a love letter to someone with the initials “J” and “B.” It then flashes back to tell the story of those two lovers – Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley) Anthony O’Hara (Callum Turner). Ellie is so passionately fascinated with these love letters that her research takes her down her own path towards romance. Her research and relentless search for these two lovers leads her towards friendship and later love with the hunky but difficult archivist Rory (Nabhaan Rizwan).
There are two love stories here and the filmmakers pull out all the stops and lean into every cliché to get you invested. Love letters aside, there’s also amnesia, missed messages and close calls, pretty people in fabulous outfits. It’s got a lot of just the right kind of schmaltz.
The Last Letter from Your Lover reminds me of another movie I saw years ago – one which I loved and watched many times. It was in 1957 and the movie was An Affair to Remember, staring Gary Grant as the talented painter Nickie Ferrante, and Deborah Kerr as the music teacher Terry Mckay. The both of them meet on an ocean liner, have a brief affair, and eventually fall in love. They then promise to meet at the top of the Empire State Building in six months if they still feel the same way.
On the day they were to meet, Terry has an accident and is crippled. Nickie thinks that Terry has rejected him. Terry, on the other hand, refuses to meet Nickie due to her disability, but fate has its own way of getting these soulmates together. It is emotional and compelling.
Now I’m not saying that The Last Letter from Your Lover is as good as one of the greatest love stories of all time. But it’s clear where this story got its cinematic inspirations.
This is a story about love and sacrifice. It is about meeting your soulmate and then overcoming all odds in order to be with them. It is about being married to a selfish, self-centered man who will do everything in his power to prevent his wife from walking away from a unhappy marriage. It is about a woman who sacrifices the love of her life because of her child.
Living life as a woman is hardly ever a bed of roses. If you find and marry the man of your dreams, then consider yourself lucky. But what if the man that you married turns out to not be your soulmate? What will you do then? These are questions that can arise in anyone’s life. And they can be absolutely heartbreaking.
The Last Letter from Your Lover is old-fashioned. It feels like something of a throwback. And despite being cloying and sentimental, it has some important messages that it imparts well due to its authenticity. I enjoyed this film. You will too. Just be sure to have a box of tissues close at hand.
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