The Love Letter

The Love Letter is a beautiful but heart-rending love story. The film was based on a short story by Jack Finney which was first published in The Saturday Evening Post on August 1, 1959. The film stars Campbell Scott and Jennifer Jason Leigh as two people who fall in love but live in different times and can never meet.

The film was originally broadcast on the Hallmark channel in 1998 and was subsequently brought out on DVD so it did not have a box office release. However, audiences who saw the film and have bought the DVD have been touched by the story. The two lovers are separated by more than 100 years and can never meet but manage to send letters to each other through an antique desk and historic post office. The bitter-sweet nature of their domed love was a big hit with romantic audiences and only the hardest of hearts would not be moved to tears.

The films plot deviates from the short story in that the two lovers eventually meet look-a-likes in their own timelines and can live ‘happily ever after’.

A lonely young man buys an antique desk for his new apartment and in it he finds a love letter from a previous owner to her fiancé.  Entranced by the letter he writes one back and posts it at a post office that dates from the period. The woman replies with another letter which he finds concealed in the desk and so their correspondence begins and they start to fall in love.

DVD release 1998

Certificate U

Available on DVD