Trying to tell the tale of a great love affair is difficult in any age, much less the modern age. It’s why cinema is littered with so many romantic dramas but so few worth a damn. The ones that are the best have held the test of time. The rest are consigned to the dustbin of history and/or cable television. Correspondence falls clearly into the latter category.
Simple premise. A professor (Jeremy Irons) and a grad student (Olga Kurylenko) have a love affair until the moment he disappears. From there she gets videos, letters and the like as she follows his words to figure out the future. She’s also a stunt woman for the movies while also being a graduate student in physics, of course, to make things more interesting.
The film’s main problem is that it has is that it’s trying to establish this grand love affair through a generally inert manner. Think The Lake House but without the sort of natural chemistry Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves had. Kurylenko is oftentimes having to act opposite technology, not another actor, and it leaves the film feeling lackluster at times.
The Correspondence’s most interesting points are what happens before the film starts, not after, as we’re seeing the aftermath and not the actual love affair.
No extras.
20th Century Fox presents The Correspondence. Written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. Starring Jeremy Irons, Olga Kurylenko, Shauna Macdonald, Rod Glenn, Ian Cairns, Anna Savva. Run Time: 116 minutes. Not Rated. Released 6.27.17
