The Letter

If you saw the trailer and thought it was interesting then don't bother; you'll hate this film. I mean it. Don't even think about watching.

If, on the other hand, you saw the trailer and thought "oh great, another forgettable thriller about a creepy guy and clueless chick. When will anyone try anything new for chrissake??" then hold your horses because this movie might be just for you.

"The Letter" marks the 2nd pairing of the phenomenal acting/directing team of James Franco and his professor Jay Anania (the first being the excellent film "Vincent" aka "Shadows & Lies"). This time Winona Ryder joins the group and adds her own perfect eccentricity to the mix. Ryder plays the part of "Martine" a playwright who is putting on a production with 5 actors including a shadowy newcomer "Tyrone" (Franco).

As the play progresses, reality begins to wrap itself around imagination and vice versa. Some have compared this to other recent mindbenders like "Black Swan" and "Memento", but I would say this film outshines them all due to Anania's fierce, stylistic approach which really gets into your head. There aren't really any shocks, thrills, chills, gore or other cheapshots to make you spill your popcorn. Instead, it's a very insidious, unsettling visual approach, as well as disjoint audio, that draws you into the mounting tension and confusion of Martine's mentally unbalanced psyche. No monsters or broken mirror shards required. That's one thing to remember about this film: it doesn't stoop to cheap thrills but instead stands by its somber, anti-Hollywood approach.

Something else to know about this film; it moves at the speed of reality, that is "slowly" by movie standards. So if you get bored easily, you might want to look elsewhere. There are scenes of dialogue with actual pauses between people speaking, like in real life, how about that? Sometimes there are periods of silence that might make the audience feel uncomfortable if they're expecting some sort of rapid fire, scripted tit-for-tat. But if you're prepared for a voyeuristic experience of watching other people's lives, this nails it. Don't get me wrong; not a single scene is wasted and there's no fluff or filler. It's just that Anania allows the scenes to breathe a little. The pacing is similar to something you might get in from a European director (Kieslowsky, Tarkovsky, maybe Bela Tarr after a few cups of coffee) and the visual poetry is reminiscent of the Japanese masters Kurosawa & Teshigahara with a distinct, hip, modern look (extreme saturation, contrast and exposure) as you might see in Aronofsky or Paul Thomas Anderson. The overall package is distinctly Anania.

And how can I end this without a word about Franco. Although his role may strike you as being smaller than you'd expect (Winona Ryder is the star), each time he graces the camera it's done with so much poise and confidence you find yourself wondering who would win in a cool-off between Franco & Bogart. Hate to admit it, but I think Franco would win by a hair.

"On that first night of course we didn't know who you were, or what you would do to us, or what you would do to me." Martine (Ryder) is a New York playwright who is getting a chance to direct her boyfriend in a new play she wrote. Soon after rehearsals begin an unknown actor, Tyrone (Franco) shows up and begins to cause tension. His acting is good but he is hostile to everyone except Martine. While the rehearsals are going on Martine begins to become paranoid and thinks someone is trying to kill her. Her re-writes of the play begin to confuse the actors and the line between life and paranoia are blurred. First of all I will say this is not terrible but this is another movie that tries to be artsy for the sake of being artsy. I find the easiest way to describe movies sometimes are to compare them to others that many have seen. I open with that because it seemed like this movie tried it's hardest to be like "Black Swan" but never quite making it. Very limited scenery and actors but the main focus is on Martine's slow descent into madness. You begin to question if she is just overly paranoid or if her concerns are legit. This is the type of movie that keeps you wondering about that which helps you make it through. Overall, an OK movie but tried to be artsy for the sake of being artsy. I give it a B-.

As much as I like both James Franco and Winona Ryder, this may be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. A complete snooze-fest from start to finish. The movie's screenplay was as much of a bore as the play within the movie! The cast looks bored most of the time.

Absolutely nothing of consequence happens in this picture...nothing! I kept looking at the timer on the DVD player thinking something should be happening soon...but it never did! Truly a wasted hour and a half of my life! Thankfully, there were no extras to watch on the disk. Had there been any, I wonder if any explanation of the purpose of the film would have been forthcoming? I gave it 2 stars simply for the audacity of putting the story on film!

The Letter (2012)

Wow, such mixed reviews on this movie. Either all thumbs up or bomb? No, but it is weirdly both terrific and horrible at once. Here's my explanation why.

This is a re-shaped reality movie in the same big (and growing) genre as "Memento" and "Pulp Fiction." As the movie progresses you are made to figure out what's going on in the most basic sense, separating reality from hallucination from moviemaker's trickery. This is a gripping game at its best that draws you into the dilemma from the character's standpoint, and that also messes with the viewer's basic ability to create sense of it for it's own sake.

But what these movies require is a combination of characters you care about and a logic that is purely cemented by the end. The two earlier examples are brilliant at it. Not so "The Letter."

This movie has the bones of an excellent, lower-budget variation on a reality bending plot, but it fails to make the characters significant (or sympathetic in any way) and it never makes the illogic within the movie reasonable.

This might give something away, but near the end a big sweeping explanation is frankly provided by a doctor, and I told myself I've been wasting an hour making sense of what is really a series of fairly jumbled impressions. They don't quite make sense, I think, though you might be able to chart out the various mixed up sections on a piece of paper if you watched it a couple more times. Maybe.

But no one would have the stamina. It's a movie with an exterior of brilliance but it's so stripped down in its other components it's actually, oddly, boring. For one thing, most of the action happens on a theater stage, which allows a kind of reality within a reality (and this ain't new, as lovers of Shakespeare know). Quickly we see that the characters are getting mixed up with the actors—that is, from the point of view of the writer/director of the play in the film, played by Winona Ryder, the expressions and frustrations in the script of the play echo the reality of the real people. When scenes shift (often suddenly) to an apartment or other outside space, the same kinds of personae are at work. The people are the characters.

But they have almost nothing to do, no real baggage to explore, no narrative elements that matter. So there is an implied infidelity (who knows?) and a bit of concern about that, and maybe an infidelity that grows as the film is being assembled, perhaps (who knows?). But so what?

The final insult to all this is that film's low budget feel and its unwillingness to accept that—it tries to look bigger than it is. It's often filmed in a stale way, and then pumped up with tonal effects or with startling (or confusing) edits. You wish it would add up to something, but it doesn't.

Other reviewers have said that it all makes sense by the end. I think not. I think it's explained away at the end, but that's different. And either way it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

This film tells the story of a female playwright, who is preparing for the opening of her play. She experiences weird occurrences, and she begins to doubt her sanity.

"The Letter" tries to be super artistic, as evidenced by super slow pace and the substitution of scenes with narration by the main character, I wish there was no narration, and they just show the events normally. The narration is plain and devoid of emotion, it does not give the first person emotional account that is expected. Winona Ryder does not look convincing as a playwright or as a crazy person. In fact, she looks to pretty and too sane for her role. The so called suspense fails miserably, because the strange events are presented in such subtle manner. There is no intensity, engagement or thrill. The whole film is a complete bore. I don't understand the beginning, middle or the end. The suppose twist at the end is so laughable and unbelievable, because there is no motive described anywhere in the film. Even when taking the low budget into account, "The Letter" could have bee so much better.