When I first heard about The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021), based on the book of the same name, I eagerly anticipated watching it. The premise, which involves memory loss, time jumps, and a forbidden love affair, usually all make for intriguing storytelling. Unfortunately, storytelling is precisely where this film missed the mark.

The Last Letter from Your Lover takes place in London in two time periods: the 1960s and modern day. In the 1960s, we follow the story of Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley), who is experiencing memory loss following a car accident. We, the audience, are as in the dark about her life as she is. The only thing that seems blatantly obvious is that she views her husband, Lawrence (Joe Alwyn), as a stranger. She stumbles upon a passionate love letter addressed to “J” from “Boot,” which prompts her journey to learn more about the letters.

In modern-day London, we meet Ellie (Felicity Jones), a fiercely independent journalist with a penchant for one-night stands and the F word. While searching in the archives for a piece she is working on, she, too, stumbles upon a letter from “J” to “Boot,” which equally intrigues her. We quickly learn, through flashbacks, that Jennifer is the J in question, and that Boot is Anthony O’Hare (Callum Turner), a foreign correspondent who is in town to interview Lawrence. They engage in an affair while Jennifer’s husband is away on business. As the film alternates narratives, we shift between Ellie’s romance with the archivist, Rory (Nabhaan Rizwan), and Jennifer and Anthony’s love affair.

Through the flashbacks, we learn that Jennifer was planning to run away with Anthony, and that she got into the car accident on her way to the train station to meet him. As present-day Jennifer discovers all of this, she becomes infuriated with her husband, who had been hiding the letters from her and lying to her about the whole situation. When she and Anthony cross paths again in modern day, he again encourages her to run away together. She declines, due to her marriage and child, but then decides to take her daughter and leave her husband anyway. Unfortunately, she misses Anthony, as he has already taken off.

SPOILERS BELOW:

Ultimately, through her discovery of the letters and Anthony and Jennifer’s love story, Ellie overcomes her fear of vulnerability and pursues a relationship with Rory. She then reconnects Anthony and Jennifer, and that is how our film ends.

Ellie’s storyline is about as underdeveloped as what little summary I’ve given it. I honestly found it unnecessary, and would rather see more time be spent developing Lawrence as a character and showing more of his supposedly terrible relationship with Jennifer. We were given one scene that is supposed to characterize Lawrence as condescending and rude, and we’re supposed to be completely okay with Jennifer’s cheating on him. As Catholics, we view adultery as a sin, even if the spouse you’re cheating on is not a great person. While I would never condone adultery, I would at least feel more sympathetic to Jennifer if I saw Lawrence horribly mistreating her. Even when Lawrence lies to her, it doesn’t feel villainous, it feels desperate. He wanted his marriage to work so badly that he did not want her to remember her affair with Anthony. Of course, honesty would have been the much better move here. It seems as though they both should have been putting work into their marriage way before all this happened, as trying to create a new life after the accident was too little, too late. Marriage takes work and active choice. You have to actively choose to love your spouse every day, even when they annoy you, hurt your feelings, or you meet someone else who you may be attracted to. We are fortunate as Catholics to view marriage as a Sacrament, as that supernatural grace from God is truly necessary in maintaining healthy marriages in this broken world. 

I loved the set design, costumes, and music choices in The Last Letter from Your Lover. I really felt like I was in London in the 1960s. Unfortunately, the story leaves much to be desired. I’d consider this a skip. There are much better love stories out there.