Love Letters

Don't be fooled by the misleading movie poster making this look like a mild horror or suspense film; it's actually a deliciously erotic drama about an older man and the younger woman he's having an affair with. Jamie Lee plays the younger woman, who is trying to recreate the passionate love affair her mom had with someone a couple decades before.

While Jamie Lee's character fails to reach the true depth of her mother's affair, wow, is it ever fun watching her try! Yes, lots of skin is seen in those moments, if you get my drift...

One's enjoyment of this film, I would say will depend entirely on how turned-on you are by Jamie Lee Curtis. And since I've had a crush on her for years, this is, for me, a true pleasure to behold!

For almost 40 years, fans of Jamie Lee Curtis have watched certain parts of this movie for a few reasons. None of them involve the movie itself, and that is a shame. Watching this movie for Jamie Lee Curtis alone is worth it. But for those who are willing to sit through the entire movie, will be pleasantly surprised. More than your typical love affair story, Love Letters has some hidden messages that most will miss unless you are paying attention. For starters, Anna has serious daddy issues. Part of her need to be in a relationship with a married man is not to relive the life of her mom's choices, but to have a strong daddy figure in her life. Oliver is both a sugar daddy and a father of two. Outside of anything sexual, the need for a strong masculine figure in Anna's life is paramount. Everytime we see Anna's real Father, she is scared, hesitant and down right scared of him. What kind of relationship did she have with him when she was younger and what motivated her mom to have the affair in the first place, matters to the storyline. As for the love letters, they are one sided. We never get to read anything from her mother. Just like Oliver, I wonder if Anna's mother ever responded to her lover's letters. Instead, we only hear and see Anna's reactions to her mother's lover letters. Anna relives the reaction of the male and not the female. She feels for how the man reacted as oppose to her mother. I find this intriguing to question Anna's feminine as well as masculine traits. Jamie Lee Curtis is drop dead gorgeous but also has masculine features both physical and social. Her clothes, haircut, social status and lifestyle are borderline. I also find some scenes in this movie edited out of place. Almost intentionally, its like reading a series of letters out of order, some of the scenes felt like they could have had happened earlier or later in the story. By the end of the movie, we start to question if any characters in this movie are right. In fact, most if not all are wrong. Not just wrong to each other but wrong to themselves. It is interesting to question who is the villain / antagonist in this story. One can argue that all the participants in the affair were one way or another wrong. Finally, the truth behind the production make this movie worth watching. Shot on a minimal budget, much of the cast including Curtis worked for very little. In exchange, she bared her soul and gave her all to tell this unique story.

After her mother dies, Jamie Lee Curtis discovers love letters from a man her mom had been having an affair with for several years and begins an affair all her own. Jamie Lee Curtis is heartbreakingly displayed at her absolute best in her first non-horror film ( not Trading Places ).Acting is also good all around and this is a very well done, very adult, motion picture. Roger Corman was shockingly the producer of this film ( his very best movie). A sad and often moving movie about how everybody longs to be loved.

Also Known As: Passion Play and My Love Letters. Rating: 9 and a 1/2 out of 10. Also features the memorable tagline: Sometimes it's right, to do the wrong thing.

This damn film still makes me cry.

There are elements of it that seem schmaltzy and trite at times, but the overall power of the story never lets up. Curtis has probably what are her finest moments in this tiny, almost never-seen film debut from Amy Jones (who did "Slumber Party Massacre" the year before to get the cash to make this Labor Of).

It's probably the most honest and gut-wrenching depiction of obsessional love I've seen, or maybe it's just obsession. Whatever it is, it's lacerating and not to be missed. There are times when, watching Curtis' performance, it's hard for your body not to ache at the anguish she seems to be feeling.

Back to Jones' script for a second... it's full of dark, moody moments that in another film would be over-the-top and pretentious, yet work beautifully here. The photographic portrait session comes immediately to mind...an awesome scene and the two actors playing it are never shown once. The whole affair is filled with little one-offs like this, all of which are presented with a late-autumn chill.

Add to the mix Amy Madigan and Bud Cort's usually fine work (and don't forget the underrated James Keach, whose seemingly at-first overly clinical readings are awkward, then completely fit the character once he's fleshed out). Oh yeah, and Ralph Jones' score is one of the most haunting and beautiful I've ever heard.

Gets me every time.

One need not watch the movie to know how this story ends: "love" doesn't matter and is totally irrelevant to anything. The cards are always stacked against The Other Person. Always. Happily, we have Love Letters to never let us forget.

If you're going to watch this movie for "!! HOT JLC topless scenes !!", you're missing out. If you're watching it to complete your Roger Corman collection, you're really missing out.

Watch it if you like feeding the geese on the river.

Watch it if you've lived a little and realize that the idea of "true love" is the product of an empty, irreconcilable lack.

But whatever you do, don't watch it for the soundtrack. Synthesized marimbas and glockenspiels, and Ralph Jones's proto-Michael Nyman piano arrangements will ruin any seriousness the movie tries to impart.

Watch it instead for the utterly bleak commentary on male-female relations, whether father/daughter, colleague/colleague, girlfriend/boyfriend and especially husband/wife.

If you're a JLC die-hard -- or at least the kind of JLC die-hard who knows there is more to life than chasing after upper torso shots -- consider also the connections to Blue Steel (1990). Particularly the retribution fantasies against an abusive (and in this case, also anti-Asian racist, and alcoholic) father, as well as the theme of a young intelligent heterosexual woman, as yet completely unable to make any intelligent choices with regards to the males in her life. No doubt, reassuring for the anti-feminist/giggling misogynist crowd. Though, unlike Megan Turner, Anna does have at least one normal relationship, with her close friend Wendy, who seems to have traveled around a few blocks in her life and is truly capable of offering her some advice.

Instead, in Love Letters, Anna's rejection of a conspicuous but understated incestuous desire on the part of a father wracked by inadequacy issues -- that beleaguered slob, fool enough to marry for that eternal game of whack-a-mole called "love" -- is implied by her consistent impatience with his violence, alcoholism, racism, and inappropriate physical proximities. To complete the cycle-to-be-broken, a flashback to her father repeating the same confused admonitions he'd yelled at Anna earlier that night: "What did I do, did I touch you!", "You're just like her!!" in a scene of domestic violence. Was her mother's 15 year long affair the cause of his enraged, repressed wino-nastiness, or a result, or totally unconnected altogether? The audience is rather effectively left to guess.

There are also a couple throwbacks to Halloween (1978) as JLC plays another dorked-out though successful "geek girl" type - what 22 year old in 1983 Los Angeles is going to be a DJ who spins Beethoven and likes electronic drone music?? Right on to that! We're also left to wonder about that 5 inch scar on Anna's left arm, hmm..hey wait, where'd that come from, gee...

Thumbs up also to: the poster for Dance Theater of Harlem in the radio station, the early tablecore from the old Alpha Syntauri Computer Music System, and the quasi-intellectual nods to Walter Benjamin and Peter Berger.

Though Love Letters ends by wrapping itself in conventional wisdom, the moral of this story is actually somewhat progressive, especially for the culturally reactionary Reagan/Bush/Thatcher/Botha mid-80s: While socially-imposed conservative conventionality is not a prerequisite for "love", the chemistry between the two individuals is crucial (I observed very little in the Curtis-Keach mushy-porn screw scenes, in which Anna gets zero on-screen enjoyment or reciprocation, and believe it was intentional.) Reversing the gender roles, as Anna lives out her affair as dictated by love letters written by a man who has experienced such chemistry, won't work, either. If he ever leaves her for you, the cards will always be stacked against The Other Woman.

Oh yes, and don't get involved with clueless, pretentious, suburban Porsche-driving married jerks who claim they are "fans", either. They will only end up consoling you with that ancient "you can do better than me" line.

Don't fall for it, honey. Go out with that dorky, San Francisco-bound colleague with the glasses, instead; the one who really loves you. That's the only type of guy who can keep up with you, anyway. 7.5/10.