The Correspondence
| The Correspondence | |
|---|---|
 Italian theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Written by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Produced by | Isabella Cocuzza Arturo Paglia |
| Starring | Jeremy Irons Olga Kurylenko Shauna Macdonald Rod Glenn Ian Cairns Anna Savva |
| Cinematography | Fabio Zamarion |
| Edited by | Massimo Quaglia |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | 01 Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 116 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | English |
| Budget | €13 million |
The Correspondence (Italian: La corrispondenza) is an English-language Italian romantic film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It stars Jeremy Irons and Olga Kurylenko in lead roles, and was released on 14 January 2016.[1] The film score was composed by Ennio Morricone.
Plot
A couple is kissing in a hotel room, astrophysics professor Ed (Jeremy Irons) and his lover the PhD student Amy Ryan (Olga Kurylenko). He wants her to reveal her most important secret to him, but she refuses. Ed leaves the room for the airport hoping to see her at his next conference at her University.
It is shown later that Amy met Ed at one of his conferences 6 years ago and she fell in love with his way of talking about astrophysics. Amy is working as a stuntwoman, who performs dangerous scenes that normally lead to the death of the character. She keeps communicating with Ed through video chat, e-mails, and packages. One day, Amy realizes he is not attending his mobile phone but receives some emails from him. When reading the last one, she notices a maple leaf hitting her window, she watches it for a moment before it flies away.
The next day, Amy attends Ed's conference, but she receives a message in her phone from Ed to leave the place, but she doesn't. She then learns that Ed died in Edinburgh some days ago. She was shocked that she still received messages from Ed's email account. Feeling confused, she goes to Edinburgh. First she tries to go to Ed's home, but she feels uncomfortable to see Ed's family. She then receives an email instructing her to go to see his lawyer. There she receives a package with a video message, where Ed apologizes to her for having left her alone, but he cannot reveal to her he was sick.
Back home Amy decides to go to the same hotel where they shared the nights and she receives a package with one of his clothes and a letter instructing her to celebrate his birthday in his summer house in Italy. She travels there where she receives a package containing a new laptop and another video where he celebrates his birthday but decided to give her the laptop as a present. She spends the rest of the time seeing the places that he suggests her to visit. In the last night she receives another video message revealing that he knows her darkest secret, an accident in which she was involved and that killed her father. She angrily burns the CD with the video and sends an encrypted message (11 times Amy name) to cancel any message to be sent, and goes back home.
Later, Amy regrets having cancelled the chain of messages and travels back to Edinburgh, where she finally confronts Ed's daughter who, at the beginning reveals that she feels anger for her, but later she decides to help her as long as she is really envious of the love of her father for Amy. However she was unable to get more information from her. Ed's lawyer, who reveals her that his last will was to give her the packages and messages according to a plan he has, even hacking his email account, and then he reveals her that she needs to ask Ed to resume the correspondence. Not even finding a bag with memory cards back in Italy, she is capable to find the secret message, as long as they are only some draft videos showing Ed trying to film while suffering the symptoms of a brain tumor. Meanwhile, she decides to use the new laptop to begin filming herself speaking about herself like sending messages to Ed, even revealing the details of the accident that killed her father.
One day, Amy finds her home ravaged by robbers and her new laptop stolen, however she finds Ed's old notebook with pencil marks of his last letter, and then the encrypted message to resume the correspondence, she sends the message and soon receives Ed's emails and packages, that began to help her to continue with her studies. She decides to confront her trauma in a botched car stunt, when only she and her companion survive and finally decides to concentrate only on her studies. With Ed's videos and messages she is capable to end her thesis and graduate with a Master in Astrophysics.
Amy receives a message from Ed to go to her lawyer's office and she inherits the summer house in Italy. She flies there and receives a last message from Ed where he reflects that humanity made a mistake that prevents them from immortality. For him, his mistake was not knowing Amy before, and with this message he sends his final farewell to her.
Amy goes back and attends an exposition and she sees a statue where she modeled before and noticed the sculptor decided to leave the failed head model as he notices a true sad expression inside. Outside she finds someone that Ed´s prevents her that "he would be a little like him", Amy accepts to call him later and decides to go back home under a sky full of stars.
Cast
- Jeremy Irons as Ed Phoerum
- Olga Kurylenko as Amy Ryan
- Shauna Macdonald as Victoria
- Simon Anthony Johns as Jason
- James Warren as Rick
- Oscar Sanders as Nicholas
- Rod Glenn as Grip
- Ian Cairns as George
- Anna Savva as Angela
- Florian Schwienbacher as Tommy
- Sammy Moreno as Alejandro
- Darren Whitfield as Custodian
- Simon Meacock as Artist
- James Smillie as Preside
- James Bloor as Ragazzo
Production
The Correspondence was produced by Paco Cinematografica and Rai Cinema production, in cooperation with UniCredit Leasing S.p.A, and supported by BLS Südtirol – Alto Adige, Trentino Film Commission and Torino Piemonte Film Commission. Filming took place in a period of ten weeks in Italy, York and Edinburgh.
The Correspondence reunites much of the same production team behind Tornatore’s The Best Offer, including the Italian director’s long-time collaborator, Ennio Morricone, as composer.
References
- ^ "La Corrispondenza (2016)". IMDb. Amazon. 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2016.