Nostalgia trip
THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER
12A ★★★
In cinemas now
Romance may not be dead but the romantic movie has been on life support since the dawn of the online hook-up and the naked selfie.
This handsome adaptation of JoJo Moyes’ 2008 bestseller administers the kiss of life to two seemingly extinct subgenres – the 90s singleton rom-com and the classic weepies of the 50s and 60s.
The Last Letter From Your Lover interweaves two love stories from different decades. In present-day London, Felicity
Jones’ commitment-phobic journalist Ellie (part Carrie Bradshaw, part Bridget Jones) is casting furtive glances at newspaper archivist Rory (Nabhaan Rizwan) while following up on her discovery of a touching love letter signed “from B”.
As more heartfelt missives turn up in the roomy archives of the London Chronicle (the 21st century’s most wellresourced regional newspaper), we crash back to 1965 to follow an illicit affair involving American socialite Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley) and Anthony O’Hare (Callum Turner), the debonair English reporter tasked with writing a profile of Jennifer’s villainous industrialist husband ( Joe Alwyn).
Shot in a gorgeous approximation of technicolour, we get classic sports cars, dashes to railway stations, interesting hats and boat trips on the French Riviera.
It’s all a little familiar but the lovebirds are perfectly cast and their sparky, flirtatious banter and long literary outpourings are beautifully written.
As most recent movie romances featured tortured adolescents and post-apocalyptic wastelands, this rose-tinted trip down memory lane feels refreshingly grown up.
The modern-day scenes never stood a chance. While Jones makes a likeable lead, drunken dancing and anguished WhatsApp messaging could never feel as swooningly romantic as the nostalgic storyline.
Two love stories are interweaved, from the present day and 1965