Okay, here's the deal. You guys know I've had, shall we say, less than perfect luck with the female of the species. I make no bones about it. Women and me are about as good a match as General Sherman and Atlanta. In both cases, it only takes a spark, and then everything goes up in smoke. For the most part, I firmly believe that, if I ever find another woman I want to marry, I'm just gonna go out and buy someone I despise a new house. That way, I'll save all the lawyer fees later on, you know?
My wonderful head nurse, Martha Nell, keeps trying to push me toward my computer to help me find Miss Right, or, at least, Miss Right Now. She tells me that, in these chat rooms and such, you can get to know people from all over the world without ever meeting them face to face. Seems a lot safer in some ways, I guess, but poor Martha Nell can't answer me when I ask her, "What if they're lying?"
I guess a cyber-romance can work out. I mean, you hear about them all the time. Joe and Irene met in a chat room, talked for six months, fell in love, finally agreed to meet, and got married. So far, though, ain't nobody talking about the Glenn Close-Fatal Attraction clones out there that go postal on some poor nebbish with a overactive hard drive. Personally, it'd kind of ruin my day to have my throat cut and my rabbit boiled by some computer-powered Love Queen.
Funny, though, how the whole idea seems so new, but the very same notion has been around for almost sixty years in the movies. Ernst Lubitsch made a film in 1949 called The Shop Around the Corner that told the story of pen pals who fall in love without meeting, only to find out that they actually know one another in "real" life. Problem is, they hate one another in real life. In their writing, they are completely different people. Take that idea, update it to the Information Superhighway Generation, and you have the plot for the movie You've Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Wish I could send ol' Ernst an e-mail and tell him that the update would make him proud.
This time out, the two in question are Joe Fox (Hanks) and Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). Kathleen owns a small children's bookshop called, not so coincidentally, the Shop Around the Corner. Joe is the proud owner of a bookstore chain that's forcing many a mom-and-pop bookstore to go under. Kathleen's store, first started by her deceased mother, is warm and cozy and has the simple human touch that most of these corporate chain stores have managed to destroy. Kathleen is trying her best to keep her store afloat, and she despises Fox and his corporate-monster way of thinking.
Kathleen also has a little secret. She's carrying on a wonderful cyber-romance with a man she only knows as "dear friend." Wanna guess who "dear friend" really is? Bingo! Joe and Kathleen are feuding in person, but are charming each other nightly online. Joe's girlfriend, Patricia (Parker Posey) is wired for sound most of the time. As he puts it, she could make coffee nervous. He's looking for someone with genuine feelings. Kathleen's boyfriend, Frank (Greg Kinnear), is a newspaper columnist that still uses a typewriter to do his daily thing because he hates technology so much. She needs some warmth and affection. As their respective others grow more and more cumbersome, Joe and Kathleen grow closer night after night.
I really gotta hand it to Nora Ephron, the director here. She and her sister Delia did a good job writing this script (or should I say, re-structuring), but Nora also went to the best team in the business right now as far as romantic comedies go. Ryan and Hanks have a track record that almost rivals Tracy and Hepburn when it comes to onscreen chemistry (see Joe vs. the Volcano, Sleepless in Seattle). Ephron found this out when she did Sleepless, because if you remember, the two spent very little screen time together, yet audiences immediately bought them as a couple. Each of them has a certain charm that blends perfectly with the other. I hesitate to call it magic, but well, if you have ever seen Hanks do that little grin as he rolls his eyes, and if you've ever seen Miss Meg do the same grin.... well, you gotta believe these two are a team. I also found myself thinking about Hanks always being compared to James Stewart. Wanna guess who played the male lead in Lubitsch's original version?
There's also a good supporting crew here, as always with Nora Ephron's films. She seems to know how to stack a deck for the best play all the way through, and here she loads up for bear. Parker Posey (The House of Yes, Waiting for Guffman) may very well be the most engaging actress nobody knows about right now. She's consistently good in everything she does, but until this film, she's seemed to stay in the independent film league, thus keeping her sheltered from the big audiences. Kinnear's character here is a bit of a yawn, but, then, he's supposed to be. Just a shame to see him underused after his big shine in As Good As It Gets. Another of my favorite supporting crew these days, Steve Zahn (That Thing You Do, Out of Sight) gets a few peeks as one of Kathleen's employees, as does Jean Stapleton.
I do wonder, though, if part of this movie's warmth comes from the incredible departure Tom Hanks takes after his sure Oscar nod in Saving Private Ryan. He was wonderful in Ryan, but it was a much darker turn, one that was a complete 180-degree turn from anything prior. Here, he appears to be even happier and charming than usual. It's as if he was away for a while in Ryan, and has come back to a comfortable home in You've Got Mail. And that comfort level also finds Miss Meg, who did a very serious turn in City of Angels. Maybe the two chose to reunite for this film to ease back into calm waters after going through the storm.
Face it folks, if you're a fan of romantic comedies, you have to like films where the leads play so well together. Capra had Jean Arthur team with Cooper and Stewart. Cukor had Hepburn and Tracy, Hepburn and Stewart, and Hepburn and Grant. Ephron has Hanks and Ryan. It'd be hard not to make a good film with these two, right?
Consider it a holiday present. After all the tension getting ready for the season, you and that special someone relax and go see You've Got Mail. And, who knows? It might inspire you to smile at a stranger now and then. After all, that person you hate might just be the person you were chatting with the night before online, and, hey, these days, you need all the friends you can get....
Image copyright Warner Bros.
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in for observation