"The Love Letter" (1998) -- Initial Thoughts

18 Cinema Lane tagged me with the Pick My Movie Tag and told me to review a Hallmark Movie, so, here we are!

Is The Love Letter (1998) the first Hallmark movie I have ever seen in its entirety?  Um, probably not.  I feel like I watched some back in college if that's what someone else was watching in the dorm lounge.  I may have seen some at my mom's house, too.  This is, however, the only Hallmark movie I have ever purchased.  As it turns out, I liked it so well, I expect to watch it again.  Probably repeatedly.

Scott Corrigan (Campbell Scott) loves history and antiques.  He programs Civil War reenactment computer games for a living.  He's engaged to a random chick who humors him about his love for the past, but doesn't appear to share or understand his interest.

Elizabeth Whitcomb (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is nearing spinsterhood in the antebellum South.  Her family wants her to stop being so picky and get married already.  Elizabeth is a poet, but her family thinks she is wasting her time with books and writing.  They push her to accept an offer of marriage from some random oaf.  In frustration and encroaching despair, Elizabeth writes a letter to the kind of man she has always imagined falling in love with and marrying.  She sticks it in a secret compartment in her desk.

A hundred years later, Scott buys that desk at an antique shop.  While refinishing it, he discovers and reads Elizabeth's letter.  Entranced by her forthright personality and touched by her desperation, he writes a reply.  Just for fun, you know?  He buys an 1860s stamp, finds the only post office building in the state that was built before the Civil War, and mails the letter.  Because, why not?

Elizabeth gets his letter in the mail.  Because, why not?

She reads it, checks her desk for the letter she had hidden there... and it is gone!  

Elizabeth is an intrepid woman.  She writes a reply and places it inside the desk again.  And waits.

Scott finds her new letter in the desk, in the same secret compartment where he found the first one.  He replies again, the same way.  And, through their time-defying letters, Scott and Elizabeth begin to form a close bond.  They understand each other -- two lonely people who are not understood by their family and friends, both yearning for someone they can tell their deepest longings and hopes and dreams to without getting laughed at.  They even exchange photographs in their letters.

Next thing you know, they're breaking off their real-life relationships in their respective time periods, too wrapped up in their newfound kinship that is blossoming into a romance across the years to mind being alone anymore.  Scott visits the house where Elizabeth once lived, which is still standing, and almost physically connects with her on the staircase.  Almost.

And then, tragedy strikes.  The time-portal post office burns down.  Scott can't send Elizabeth any more letters, ever.  (You may ask, why doesn't he try sticking letters in the secret compartment of the desk?  I have asked the same thing.  The movie doesn't ever make that an option, so I guess we'll never know.)

But, fear not!  This movie actually has a happy ending!  I wasn't expecting it to, but it does.  WAY happier than Somewhere in Time (1980), which it sometimes reminded me just a smidge of.  (Also, doesn't that Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock movie The Lake House have a similar premise?  I haven't seen it, but it sounds similar.)

Anyway, about that happy ending.

(MAJOR SPOILERS in the next paragraph)

Back in the 1860s, Elizabeth meets a dashing officer (also played by Campbell Scott) whom she falls for while simultaneously falling for Scott through his letters.  Said dashing officer dies.  But then, at the very end of the movie, when Scott visits Elizabeth's grave, he meets a woman (also played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) who doesn't find it weird at all that he would be wandering around a graveyard in the rain looking like he's pining for his lost love.  And so we know that, if time travelling letters are possible in this world, reincarnation is also possible, and so Elizabeth and Scott can be together a last.  Sorta kinda.  Trust me, it works.

(END of SPOILERS)

The real reason that I bought this movie in the first place is that I like both Jennifer Jason Leigh and Campbell Scott.  I mostly know Campbell Scott from a really good 2000 production of Hamlet, though he is also in Dead Again (1991) which also has a reincarnated-lovers premise, though handled very differently.  I've seen Jennifer Jason Leigh in quite a few other things, and she always fascinates me for two reasons: one, she plays the most marvelously fierce characters, and two, she's Vic Morrow's daughter.  And, every now and then, she will have an expression that is such an exact echo of him that it's almost eerie.  It's usually when she's either angry or very annoyed, like here:

My goodness, that is such a familiar scowl.

Anyway, if the two leads hadn't been such interesting, capable actors, this movie would probably be hopelessly hokey.  But they both absolutely sold their characters' belief that they were falling in love across the decades and miles.  And they both played lonesome and vulnerable so well that I just ached for Scott and Elizabeth to find happiness at last, with or without each other.  Which, they do!

Also, while writing this review, I learned that Campbell Scott is Colleen Dewhurst's son.  I had no idea!  By a crazy, random happenstance, I was watching Dewhurst in Anne of Green Gables (1985) with my daughters earlier this week.  How about that?

Is this movie family friendly?  Yup.  There's a bit of kissing here and there.  There's no implication that Scott and his modern-day fiancee are sleeping together -- she does not live in his apartment.  No onscreen violence, though the Civil War does claim lives during the story.

Now, about that tag...

The Tag’s Rules 

• Nominate one or more people to review the film or films of your choice. Or you can request they review something from a certain year, genre, or star. Everyone can review the same thing, or you can request each person cover something different. As long as it’s something they haven’t written about yet, you’re good. 
• Nominees are allowed to request a different pick for whatever reason no more than five times. Stuff happens. We all know it. 
• Nominees must thank the person who nominated them and provide a link their blog. 
• Nominees may nominate others to keep the tag going. Picking the person who nominated them is allowed, or they can nominate someone else. Maybe both. 
• All participants need to include these rules in their post, whether they’re nominees or picking nominees. 
• All participants should use the “Pick My Movie” banner or something similar in their posts. 
• Have fun!

I hereby nominate the following blogs for this tag:

Classic Film and TV Corner

Maidens of Green Gables

Musings of an Introvert

Sidewalk Crossings

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch and review any movie off my list of my 100 favorite movies!  Since I like a pretty wide variety of film genres, styles, and eras, I think picking one shouldn't be too hard.  Bonus points if you choose a movie from that list that you haven't seen before!  Do note that it has to be something you have NOT reviewed previously.

Play if you want to :-)