The Last Letter From Your Lover review: imagine what they could have done with a decent script

This buy one, get one free love story squanders its talented cast with shoddy dialogue and a half-baked plot

An adaptation of a Jojo Moyes novel, here’s a half-baked movie that offers two love stories for the price of one. Its talented American star, Shailene Woodley, recently boasted that (because she’s friends with the actor-turned-director, Augustine Frizzell) she said yes to the project, “before I’d even read the script”. Yeah, that would explain a lot.

In the 1960s, in various exotic locations, privileged Jennifer Stirling (Woodley) falls for self-made, recently-divorced journalist Anthony O’Hare (Callum Turner). That fraught relationship, complicated by the fact that Jennifer is already married to Lawrence (Joe Alwyn, wasted here), is filtered through the trials and tribulations of a modern-day and thoroughly modern (ie Fleabag-lite) London hack, Ellie (Felicity Jones), struggling to open her heart after a wounding break-up. Might Ellie’s interest in Jennifer and Anthony change the way she behaves with cute archivist Rory (Nabhaan Rizwan)?

Jennifer, for much of the film, is the victim of a nasty case of amnesia. She’s also the victim of some diabolical hats. One of them is yellow and resembles a small toilet. Another is white and looks like a fireman’s helmet. There’s also a green chapeau that all but screams, “I wish to be worn by George Melly!”

Felicity Jones and Nabhaan Rizwan
handout

Almost as memorable as the hats is the treatment of a minor character, a blameless barman called Felipe (Ricardo Gilfillan). The latter is forced to drive Jennifer to a train station, in the pouring rain, at great speed (“Please hurry!” snaps our desperately romantic heroine). Without giving too much away, things do not end well for Felipe, yet none of the supposedly sensitive protagonists seems to find this tragic. Alwyn, meanwhile, is expert at playing shallow toffs (as he showed in The Favourite), but even villains need hidden depths and Lawrence is all sneer and no surprises.

Digging through the archives, Ellie groans with delight after reading Anthony’s letters (“They’re so rich in feeling!”), while Ellie’s editor groans with delight after reading one of her articles (“Ellie, it’s FANTASTIC!”). This film champions the power of words, which some viewers will find ironic. The fabulous cast do what they can and Jones and Rizwan even manage to inject a little sit-com-ish sweetness into the proceedings. Just think what they could have done with proper dialogue and a decent plot.

110mins 12A. In cinemas

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