Letters to Juliet

Seen at: Carmike 10, two weeks ago

It's almost cruel---over the past three months we have gotten three incredible performances by Amanda Seyfried, my favorite 20-something actress. What a year so far for her.

The cruel part? I felt it strongly while watching Letters from Juliet, a lighthearted and fairly straightforward romantic comedy set in Tuscany, in which Seyfried stars (and holds her own against Vanessa Redgrave). The story is fun and predictable, but earnest and quite watchable within its genre. And yes, Taylor Swift makes an appearance in the soundtrack in Act Three.

Watching Seyfried cross the screen in the echoing streets of Verona and Sienna, or sitting on a Tuscan hillside in the sun, or under a starry sky, was for me, in that moment, to feel the majesty of film to capture the beauty of creation on screen, and to ache in my soul to know that such beauty exists. It is not a longing for possession of the actress herself, or even desire for her, but something more transcendental that springs from the power of art itself. It is cruel in how fleeting it is. It is the tragedy and triumph of cinema, as it reflects life, when something is so beautiful that it hurts in your soul, pleasantly so.

One of my favorites of the year so far. If Amanda didn't appear in anything else for 2010, she'd already be on the shortlist of my Actress of the Year.