They’ll Always Be Faithful, and So Is ‘Letters’

Dearest Melissa: My heart is pounding about tonight. I’ve always wanted you all to myself, yet for more than a decade, I’ve shared you with theater audiences because I wanted people to know how wonderful you were--how wonderful we were--in all of those open-hearted letters we wrote to one another. But network television, yow!

Have you looked at the tape that ABC sent? What do you think of our “Love Letters” now? A.R. Gurney adapted his play, and Mr. “Singin’ in the Rain,” Stanley Donen, directed. Laura Linney plays you, and she’s simply luminous--she certainly captures that mischievous glint in your eyes. And Steven Weber plays yours truly; yes, he’s more handsome than I, but he’s just as starchy as you’ve always accused me of being.

Dear Andy: Um, er, eep! Oh, I have such mixed feelings. Overall, I think the movie is terribly sweet, of course; but some of the most poignant aspects of our story have been lost in the translation.

Dear M: You bewitching, maddening woman. After all of my begging, you still write these short, elliptical notes. Please tell me more. You’re the artist, after all--so much more in touch with your feelings than this WASPy, repressed senator.

Dear A: OK, OK. Sheesh. I was worried that this project would never work. I mean, the play involved just an actor and an actress sitting at a table, reading our letters. How could that ever be made into a movie?

I am so relieved that the filmmakers retained most of our lovely language. Yet in providing a TV-appropriate framework for looking back over our correspondence, they’ve given away the ending’s big revelation in the very first scene. They also have us meeting, face to face, many more times than we actually were able to, and that’s too bad, because I always thought what made our story so touching was that everything in our lives--parents, boarding schools, war, ourselves--conspired to keep us apart.

Still, I can never get through that last letter of yours without blubbering. So, I’ll be there tonight, watching at your side . . . if only in your mind.

* “Love Letters” airs tonight at 9 on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG-D-L (may be unsuitable for younger children, with advisories for dialogue and language).