"You've Got Mail"
            A movie review by
            Linda Lopez McAlister
            December 19, 1998

    Here's a certainty you can count on:  If there's a new film by the
Ephron sisters, director Nora and screenwriter Delia,  I'm going to go see
it and review it.  And, if  both they and I run true to form, I'm going to
like it. "You've Got Mail," the latest in their string of romantic 
comedies, has hit the screens around Tampa, and, as usual, this is a
witty, intelligent, adult fairy tale played by a superb cast all done up
in Hollywood's glitziest holiday gift wrapping.

It is not, as some critics contend, just a rehash of "Sleepless in
Seattle," despite the fact that the two leading players are once again
Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. It is, in fact, a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's
wonderful 1940 romantic comedy "The Shop Around the Corner" that starred
Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy Stewart, for whom Meg and Tom are perfect '90s
counterparts.  She: charming, funny, smart, attractive, and lovable: he:
an earnest, sincere, down-to-earth, nice guy.

     Everybody knows they're perfect for one another, except them.
They think they're bitter enemies and their true love is someone else, the
anonymous person with whom they are carrying on an extended correspondence
by mail (1940) or by e-mail (1998).  Actually,  what with chat rooms and
fictitious web identities, it's more believable that one could be in an
e-mail correspondence with someone whose real identity you don't know than
it is that you could get into a traditional correspondence that way.  (I
think they used box numbers in the original).

    There's no reason to relate many of the details of how the plot
unfolds.  But I can say something about the characters and set the scene.
Kathleen Kelley (Meg Ryan)  is carrying on her mother's work as
owner-operator of a very special children's book shop on the Upper Westside
of Manhattan.  It's a great little store where generations of kids have come
to hear stories read to them and to get books that will fire their
imaginations and turn them into lifelong readers.  It's as much a calling
and a work of devotion to her mother than a business.   She runs the store
with some nice, knowledgeable young people and a suitably quirky old
bookkeeper played by Jean Stapleton.   The dramatic event that gets things
rolling is the announcement that Fox & Sons booksellers is opening a brand
new superstore cum latte bar (think Borders) just across the street from
them.  The new giant in the neighborhood discounts their books and and
will, in all likelihood, put The Shop Around the Corner out of business.
(Now there's a plot as current as the daily newspaper, though the internet
may put them all out of business).  Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) is a third
generation bookstore man and with his father and grandfather he revels in
every small independent that bites the dust. Nothing personal, of course,
just business.

    Having met Joe and come to distrust him intensely, Kathleen seeks
comfort and advice more from her e-mail pal than from her boyfriend,
writer Frank Navasky (Greg Kinnear), and they eventually break up, as do
Joe and his girlfriend. Guess what happens next!

    Being a former long-time resident of the Upper West Side of
Manhattan myself, I loved the travelogue aspect of the film, i.e., the
lovely cinematography that shows how beautiful Manhattan can be.  I also
enjoyed revisiting old stomping grounds such as Zabar's gourmet emporium,
the 79th St. Boat Basin and the garden in Riverside Park.   I also seem to
be on the same wave length with the Ephrons when it comes to humor.  The
film includes lots of funny things so I was laughing throughout.

While I'm not really wildly enthusiastic about  "You've Got Mail,"  I found
it to be a very pleasant and enjoyable couple of hours at the movies.    It
is less sappily saccharine than was "Sleepless in Seattle" with which it's
inevitably being compared and I think both men and women will enjoy it; it's
not just a "woman's film" as is "Stepmom" that I'll be reviewing next week.

For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film.

Linda Lopez McAlister, Chair
*    Dept. of Women's Studies, FAO 153
*    University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620
*    mcalister@chuma1.cas.usf.edu