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The Love Letter

The book The Love Letter was made into the movie The Love Letter.

Which one did you like better, the book or the movie?  There are 6 votes for the book, and 9 votes for the movie.

Book details for The Love Letter

The Love Letter was written by Cathleen Schine. The book was published in 1995 by Signet. More information on the book is available on Amazon.com.

 

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In the quaint New England town of Pequot--"an artists' colony without the artists"--a mystery unfolds in the form of a crumpled letter. Helen MacFarquhar, the divorced 42-year-old proprietor of Horatio Street Books, finds a torrid love note in a stack of ... Read More
In the quaint New England town of Pequot--"an artists' colony without the artists"--a mystery unfolds in the form of a crumpled letter. Helen MacFarquhar, the divorced 42-year-old proprietor of Horatio Street Books, finds a torrid love note in a stack of mail. Creased oddly, without an accompanying envelope, addressed to "Goat" and signed "Ram," at first the letter only momentarily disrupts her routine. But Helen, usually in total control of her thoughts, can't seem to get it out of her head. Was it simply a postal error, or was it meant for her? Everyone who enters her store becomes a suspect, even her new summer employee, 20-year-old Johnny--whom she has paraded around the premises like "a turkey, perhaps, on a leash," introducing him with delighted condescension: "Look what I've got ... a college student."

Johnny is alternately fascinated and irritated by his boss, who relies on unabashed, highly skilled flirting as her fail-safe mechanism for closing a sale. We too are drawn in by Helen's seductive charm and savvy competency, so much so that we are as genuinely surprised as she is when her idle wonderings about Johnny become something more. What could this literary, lovely face that sells a thousand books see in a college boy, 22 years her junior?

Except for the duo's first embrace--precipitated by Helen's accidental hosing down of the hunky, shirtless undergrad--The Love Letter stays comfortably on this side of heaving-bosom romance novel. Humor reigns supreme here, as well as a warm nostalgia and thoughtful reflection on good old-fashioned letter writing: "Letters are so indiscreet, she thought. They're so exposed, so vulnerable, so naked--they're even worse than snapshots." Cathleen Schine's engaging fourth novel may even incite a few readers to forgo e-mail for the pleasant scrape of ink across paper. --Brangien Davis

Movie details for The Love Letter

The movie was released in 1999 and directed by Peter Chan. The Love Letter was produced by Dreamworks Video. More information on the movie is available on Amazon.com and also IMDb.

Actors on this movie include Kate Capshaw, Blythe Danner, Ellen DeGeneres, Julianne Nicholson, Tom Everett Scott, Tom Selleck, Gloria Stuart, Bill Buell, Alice Drummond, Erik Jensen (II), Margaret Ann Brady, Jessica Capshaw, Walter Covell, Patrick Donnelly, Lucas Hall, Christian Harmony, Christopher Nee, Geraldine McEwan, Marilyn Rockafellow and Breanne Smith.

 

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Its ads portrayed it as a wacky farce, while critics largely ignored it, presuming it to be a vanity project from Kate Capshaw (better known as Mrs. Steven Spielberg). But The Love Letter is neither; on the contrary, it's a low-key but surprisingly rich a... Read More
Its ads portrayed it as a wacky farce, while critics largely ignored it, presuming it to be a vanity project from Kate Capshaw (better known as Mrs. Steven Spielberg). But The Love Letter is neither; on the contrary, it's a low-key but surprisingly rich and touching film about love, illusions, and regret. Helen (Capshaw), a bookseller in a small seashore town, discovers an unsigned love letter that's fallen into the cushions of a couch in her store. The letter doesn't say who it's for, but Helen assumes it's for her and starts wondering who sent it. One would expect this to lead to a whirling comedy of mistaken identities, but after some amusing daydream moments, the movie follows its story with subtlety and nuance. The characters behave according to their own needs and desires, rather than the demands of standard Hollywood goofiness. The performances--from a cast including Tom Selleck (In and Out), Tom Everett Scott (That Thing You Do), Ellen DeGeneres (EDtv), newcomer Julianne Nicholson, and others--are uniformly unforced and natural. Viewers weary of the hyped-up, absurd emotional climaxes of most so-called romantic comedies will find a respite here. The Love Letter is a genuinely charming film. --Bret Fetzer