4 Letters of Love - A review

The movie ‘4 Letters of Love’ based on the book by Niall Williams and directed by Polly Steele changed my perspective on love. They don’t just showcase the love you would expect between 2 significant others but also the differing love between a father and son compared to a father and daughter. A love of a hobby, in this case painting, or writing. How you might not know what love is at a young age, or a toxic and manipulative love where you can so easily fall out of love if it was only a quick fix. The love that you so narrowly miss when your paths were so close to intertwining, and a love that you find when you were never searching for it. The way that William’s wrote the script to encompass all these different types of love combined with Steele’s direction is what made this film so compelling for me. It was a beautiful script with so many lines that stuck with me till the end and actually had me thinking about them for a while. With the voiceovers from the guy over the beautiful landscape scenes; he’s such a wordsmith. He describes the love of the absent father as ‘love between them but no language’ and the love between such a loving man and wife with the line ‘If I took a look at all the things I said I would, then I wouldn’t have eyes for you’, and I thought that that was such a beautiful way to express one’s love for their significant other. Whereas the manipulative and toxic love, even at the very start of when they first meet it was such a weird occurrence, and his actions throughout the film were not love, it was desperation. I think it was necessary however as she might never have realised that he was indeed the wrong man.

This movie delves into very religious aspects from the very start when God ‘communicated’ to a character and ‘told’ him to change his whole entire life around, and then later on in the movie where God communicated through fire; alluding somewhat to Moses talking to a burning bush in Exodus. I usually don’t like when Christianity is portrayed in a movie because it often does not give any character development and usually only represents it as homophobic Christian family that prays at the dinner table before a meal’ (with the exception with a select few horror movies), and never really delves any deeper. But the way that it was portrayed in this movie, moved the story along. It created tragedy, humour, and opportunity. The most unrealistic part about it however was one of the signs from God (spoiler), and how he miraculously healed her disabled brother, as the sign that she was to not marry the man she thought she was in love with. With the advancements in modern medicine, I just thought that it was unrealistic that one day he can just miraculously walk again when a ‘godsend’ walked through the door. Although it was a very sweet moment, and I did see it coming (or I hoped that it would happen with the hopeless romantic side of me), I do wish that she asked for another sign, or didn’t specify for a miracle to happen just so she wouldn’t marry that man. I think that if she was even asking for a sign that she was looking for a way out, and therefore should never have said yes in the first place.

Technical

The cinematography of this was incredible. The location choice of Northern Ireland and drone shots to showcase the beauty of it was a great choice. I loved how they incorporated Irish culture into this by including phrases with an Irish dialect as well as an Irish flute to further showcase a part of the world that many Hollywood movies don’t and it’s like a breath of fresh air. There’s little to no CGI, and everything just makes you feel. The shots of urgency especially with a shaky camera up and close to someone running; it makes you sit on the edge of your seat where you hope they get there in time as all you’re seeing is just pure expression on their face with no spatial awareness since you can’t actually see how close they are to their destination. The music score really amplifies this, makes it more dramatic as you would expect but it was just so beautiful. I love the colour casts that frame this movie. A blue-ish hue to the guy’s story to start with, which starts to get warmer as his relationship with his father improves. And a warm hue for the girl’s story that slightly darkens as her toxic relationship ensues. But once they meet, it’s only ever warm and uplifting from there. Oh and the way that the story unfolds with the father of the guy’s final painting being of the final scene was just beautiful.

Independent films are the future. This film was just beautiful.