Reading Away Life: Epistolary Movies – Ava Zavora @avazavora

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Epistolary Movies – Ava Zavora @avazavora

Epistolary Movies by: Ava Zavora In Dear Adam, book blogger Eden enters a passionate online relationship with a mysterious Englishman named Adam. Although they eventually talk over the phone, their communication begins with tweets, then progresses to e-mails, chats, and texts, the modern reincarnations of the old-fashioned love letter. Because they communicate this way, Dear Adam can be characterized as an epistolary novel (one written in the form of a series of letters).
Two of my favorite movies of all time are epistolary, involving real letters or e-mails.
Who hasn’t seen You’ve Got Mail, where two rival book store owners unknowingly send each other flirtatious e-mails under the Internet monikers of NY152 and shopgirl?

Very different in tone but using the same device in a fantasy framework, Alex and Kate exchange letters and fall in love in The Lake House. Easy right? Wrong. She’s writing from 2006, he’s writing from 2004. Confession: I burst into tears at the same scene, every time I watch this movie. You know that scene – the one where she’s on her knees with one hand on the mailbox post … just watch it with a box of tissues.

An oldie but goodie is Roxanne, starring Steve Martin as a modern day Cyrano de Bergerac. Beautiful Roxanne receives letters so passionate and persuasive that she falls in love with (and takes to bed) its writer, Chris. Only Chris didn’t actually pen the letters …

I have to mention this one, because I know this is probably the number one most romantic scene of all time for many, many women. Ryan Gosling. 365 letters. ‘Nuff said.