Letters at the Tree
Charlie Bellow (Jesse Bradford) arrives in NYC to attend business school but whilst there receives the news that his cousin has committed suicide. On the same day he is meant to visit his grieving aunt he meets Jordan (Elisha Cuthbert) who captivates him and who he ends up taking home when later on he finds her passed out at a subway station. It leads to the start of their rather unusual relationship but one with Jordan spending plenty of time either acting erratic or getting drunk. Things come to ahead and they agree to exchange letters and meet up a year later at a tree in the park to read the letters.
I will stop that synopsis of "My Sassy Girl" there but I will say that the content of Jordan's letter to Charlie is what the movie is all about. It explains her behaviour and why they had to part ways. I will also say now that "My Sassy Girl" is a remake of a Korean movie and although I haven't seen the original it is extremely clear that those who have are less than impressed with this American remake.
Despite having not seen that Korean original version I have to say that "My Sassy Girl" did little for me. Much of that comes from the erratic romance which ends up coming across like a lot of nonsense with too much daft humour thrown in. It just doesn't feel like there is any real attraction between Charlie and Jordan with both Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford delivering nice but generic characters and never really having that chemistry to allow us to buy in to this unusual romance. And what that means is that whilst you still get the power of the letter scene the build up to it just doesn't deserve it.
What this all boils down to is that "My Sassy Girl" is for me a below par rom-com with the build up to its big moment a mix of the too generic and the too daft. But the movie's big scene which involves the letters still has a lot of power and that in many ways prevents this from being a total waste of time, well that and the fact that Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford have likeable personas.
