You've Got Mail

The most successful version yet of this familiar premise.

A valentine to the happenstance miracle of lovers and other strangers, a movie that regards modern romance as something that is, ultimately, old-fashioned to its core.

A feel-good movie that offers enough comedy and romance to warm the heart without risking a sentimental overdose.

The movie, without seeming to realize it, turns into a romantic parable about the joys of being absorbed by a conglomerate.

This is filmmaking as a minor feat of engineering, the kind where even the gossamer emotions seem like prefab components -- charm, whimsy, serendipity, all so many discs plugged into the hard drive.

In a film about the ruthless corporate destruction of small businesses, it's hard not to flinch at the prominent placement accorded IBM, Starbucks and AOL logos.

Takes almost two self-infatuated, smarmy, condescending, cringe-inducingly sentimental hours to reach its pre-ordained conclusion.

For my inaugural review for The Puritan Post, my boss told me I was could write about any movie I wanted, since he doesn’t have money to actually pay for me to go to the movies. “You’ve Got Mail” is my favorite romantic comedy. I actually own three copies of the 1998 Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan classic on VHS (I don’t use DVDs or Blu Rays). The truth is that I adore this movie. I love “You’ve Got Mail”. I probably love “You’ve Got Mail” more than Seth Rogen’s character in “Undeclared”. Also, props if you got that reference. In all seriousness though, “You’ve Got Mail” is the perfect rom-com and a perfect love story. Here’s why. “You’ve Got Mail” takes the best parts of “Sleepless in Seattle” and fixes the flaws of the second in the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan Rom-Com trilogy. You might be asking “Hank, I thought ‘You’ve Got Mail’ was the second Hanks/Ryan rom-com”. Wrong, friendo. People always forget “Joe Versus The Volcano". The main reason “You’ve Got Mail” is better than “Sleepless in Seattle” is the plot. There is no real conflict in the latter film. Whereas in “You’ve Got Mail”, there’s an inherently compelling conflict: the two protagonists who are in love with each other are business rivals, but they don’t know it yet. This brilliant device could be attributed to the fact that “You’ve Got Mail” is a remake of the 1940 Jimmy Stewart film “The Shop Around the Corner”, but nevertheless, “You’ve Got Mail” takes this familiar concept and modernizes it in an original way that was incredibly ahead of its time. Another area S.I.S. falls drastically short of Y.G.M. is in the characters. In “Sleepless in Seattle”, Meg Ryan is engaged to a super cool dude in Bill Pullman, whom she sneaks around on for some guy she’s “in love with” that she’s literally only ever heard on the radio. Whereas in the modern masterpiece, “You’ve Got Mail”, our heroine is dating a horribly self-involved, obnoxious dude, who is addicted to buying vintage typewriters in Greg Kinnear (who kills it in this flick by the way). “You’ve Got Mail” doubles down by giving Tom Hanks a similarly horrible girlfriend as well played by Parker Posey (who also kills it), instead of being a widower who may or may not be ready to move on as he was in “Sleepless in Seattle”. By giving us characters with horrible love lives, it is a lot easier to root for said characters to fall in love. The reality is, both movies are still classic romantic comedies. However, it is incredibly impressive that the writer and director who made both flicks was able to make such vast improvements the second time around. Well played, Nora Ephron, well played. All “Sleepless in Seattle” comparisons aside, “You’ve Got Mail” was years ahead of its time in telling a technology-centric love story. And unlike most tech-centric rom-coms since then, it still holds up (looking at you ‘Must Love Dogs’). The bottom line is that if you haven’t seen “You’ve Got Mail”, you’re not only doing yourself a disservice as a moviegoer, but also as an American. “You’ve Got Mail” is a beautiful story about how two people with two totally different ideological viewpoints can fall in love because of who they are inside. If that isn’t a love story with relevance today, I don’t know what is. Oh, and Tom Hanks’ best friend in the movie is Dave Chappelle. How many other rom-coms have Dave Chappelle in them? Not enough, sadly. None, actually.

calculative and constructive steps.. You've Got Mail You've Got Mail is a plot driven romance about a guy and a girl who are unknown to each other but knows more about each other than anyone. It is a classic romantic tale whose simplicity is its key that unlocks each and every emotions of the audience as it goes through its track. The chemistry as required, is just amazing with both the lead cast, investing equally, draws out the heat from the content. Ticking for two hours, there isn't an inch of the feature, that is bourgeois or distraction, it is pure concrete material. The goofyness, the flirty talks, the references and the cheesy tricks, all works in its favour because of its genuine reasonings that are justified to the core. Chugging down all the perspective that they could squeeze out in the allotted time, it offers enough reasons for the audience to stay on the edge of the seat. It is short on technical aspects like background score, cinematography and sound department. The camera work is decently handled with beautiful visuals and bright colors that lights up the feature and offers a breezy atmosphere to the viewers. The narrative is smart if not mature, hilarious if not practical and honest to the core if chalky around the edges. Hanks has never been better with his flawed and complex character while Ryan is good enough to steal the spotlight from him. Ephron; the co-writer and director, may not be as convincing while executing the script, but his screenplay is worth basically everything. Argumentative conversations, witty dialogues and the good old romantic tale that we all have been missing are the high points of the feature. You've Got Mail cannot be categorized into guilty pleasure, it is much smarter than it seems in its calculative and constructive steps.

On the surface, the film is a typical romantic comedy, based on the premise that two business enemies begin anonymously chatting to each other online, and fall in love with each other's nameless identities through the internet. For me, this was the least interesting part of the film. What interested me more was its exploration of the business world, and the moral grey area of huge business chains and franchises sweeping through society, forcing the closure of smaller, family-run businesses that haven't a snowball's chance in hell of competing. Nonetheless, it is clear that this was not the main point that the filmmakers were trying to show, and what results is a slow romantic comedy, and the romance that ever-so-slowly blossoms between Hanks and Ryan feels all the more forced. Hanks gives a typically great performance, and Ryan isn't too shabby either. It's a shame that they are surrounded by a chorus of one-dimensional characters who really offer nothing of true value to the story, and the plot itself is strained to the point of implausibility. But for most of its runtime, it will keep you entertained.

Something came in the mail today... I wonder what is it. It's..... YOU'VE GOT MAIL!!!! Sorry, even the joke's stupid, but I made it a lot better to fit in this movie. If I ever see this movie in my inbox, you should know what I'm going to do with it.

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan prove three's far from the charm in this limp, flat, by-the-numbers romantic comedy, their third (and last) such collaboration. Ryan plays the owner of a small children's bookstore who, when her shop comes under fire from a big-box retailer around the corner, finds solace in the advice of an anonymous e-mail buddy. Spoiler alert, said buddy turns out to be the billionaire owner of said retailer (Hanks), and the two dance around like marionettes with a sliced string or two for the next couple hours, narrowly avoiding each other's identities while gnashing teeth and slinging mud in the press. It's an irritating story, filled with irritating people doing irritating things. Hanks and Ryan are locked in cruise control, looking down their noses at the material (and, perhaps, at the doofs who actually make such online connections), and enjoy none of the easy chemistry and warm charm they shared in Joe Versus the Volcano or, to a lesser extent, Sleepless in Seattle. The '90s mascara is caked on thick, too, with eye-rolling mainstream rock soundtrack choices, cookie cutter casting stereotypes and an era-typical Hollywood take on all things cyber. Bad, empty, corporate-friendly trash.