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Susan Granger's review of "The Love Letter" (DreamWorks)
If you've seen the previews of coming attractions, you've seem the best parts of Kate Capshaw's (Mrs. Steven Spielberg) lackluster foray into producing. Set in a picturesque New England coastal town, Lobolly By The Sea, this romantic fantasy revolves around a mysterious love letter that is discovered by a number of people. Kate Capshaw finds it first. She's the emotionally celibate proprietor of the local bookstore and thinks it was written to her by Tom Everett Scott, a hunky college student working there for the summer. When her assistant, Ellen DeGeneres, discovers the anonymous note, she thinks it was meant for her, sent from a gentle, goofy fireman, Tom Selleck. (Which is odd, since Selleck obviously has a long-time crush on Capshaw.) Then, while the local eccentric (Geraldine McEwan) named Miss Scattergoods, bicycles around making caustic comments, Capshaw's estranged mother (Blythe Danner) and semi-senile grandmother (Gloria Stuart) arrive for a visit. Wretchedly underwritten by Maria Maggenti and sentimentally directed by Hong Kong's Peter Ho-sun Chan, this choppy, heavy-handed, slowly paced, picture-postcard film disappoints. Ellen DeGeneres is the only one with sense of humor but her self-deprecating wisecracks are derived from her highly publicized off-screen life, rather than the story. And there's no way Blythe Danner could be Kate Capshaw's mother, given the obvious ten-year difference in their ages. Indeed, Kate Capshaw could be Gwyneth Paltrow's mother. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Love Letter" is a fumbling 4. Kevin Costner's "Message in a Bottle" was a different spin on a similar story, released earlier this year.
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