Eine Handvoll Worte

It's 1965 London. Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley) returns home to her husband Laurence (Joe Alwyn) after a stay in the hospital. They're wealthy from the stuffy upper crust of society. It's a loveless and childless marriage. He's controlling and she's pining for escape. The couple goes on vacation. Reporter Anthony O'Hare (Callum Turner) arrives to interview Laurence. In modern day London, Ellie Haworth (Felicity Jones) is a dissatisfied single gal. She's been assigned to write a bio for a former editor of her paper. She had recently died and left her archival material with the paper. Ellie finds a mysterious love letter which intrigues her to investigate further.

I like the start. It has good potential although the back and forth in time period always held a danger to the narrative flow. One side or the other could falter and stall the entire movie. To me, the emotional high point is the dinner early in the movie. This is a movie about Jennifer seeking independence from Laurence more than about a love story between Jennifer and Anthony. On top of that, they do the Love Affair turn going to meet on top of the Empire State Building. I'm disappointed that they're doing this old trope. Quite frankly, I'd rather have him die and she has to find independence by herself. The other side has a smaller issue for me. I want Rory to be more. They try to do the combative meet-cute between Ellie and Rory but he doesn't hold up his side of the bargain. He's too weak to fight back. This is an old style romance and there is nothing wrong with that. It's simply not anything more than passable.

As always, the book is by far better than the movie. The casting felt off, chemistry between actors wrong, and the changes made to accommodate a movie version were unfortunate. Overall, without the book it's a fine movie...I'd say skip the movie, read the book!

I honestly expected more romance and more heartwrench from the movie but the romance comes off as a little bland and there is little chemistry between the main characters although I would credit this mostly to the writing. It however makes for a nice drama and a good Saturday comfort watch.

I wish I had watched this before reading the book because I think I could have really enjoyed it more. I LOVED the book...devoured it in two days...so it was tough to see it essentially butchered by the movie. I will say that the movie ending gave me the goosebumps that I didn't get from the book, so bravo there. I truly think this was a good movie, but I think to really appreciate it, wait to read the book.

Two storylines (past + present) CAN work in films but it's a delicate balance. Honestly, the present day romance should have dropped and the 1960s story should have been the focus. As it were, the present day story tried to be a rom-com which wasn't very funny and the 1960s got shortchanged with too many montage sequences to tell the story instead of actual scenes. Montages don't build feelings for the characters! Cinematography and costumes and lighting in the 1960s story was gorgeous. A lot of potential here, but it should have been a limited series instead of a movie in order to do the book justice.