You've Got Mail

United States

1998

119 Min

Color

1.85:1

English

Currently 2.6/5 Stars.
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EXEC Delia Ephron, G. Mac Brown, Julie Durk

PROD Nora Ephron, Lauren Shuler Donner

SCR Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron, Miklós László

CAST Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Katie Sagona, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton, Steve Zahn, Heather Burns, Dave Chappelle, Dabney Coleman, John Randolph, Cara Seymour, Chris Messina

Tom Hanks is NY152, an online persona who has been enjoying a healthy e-mail relationship with Shopgirl, as typed by Meg Ryan. Having agreed to keep all telling personal details out of their correspondence, they have found that they can engage in a free-flowing exchange of thoughts and ideas cut loose from the embarrassment or the complications of real life. This also means they don’t have to divulge that they are currently seeing other people, nor do they have to accept the guilt of infidelity. Of course, since this is Hollywood, they also are oblivious to the ironies that dog their online relationship.

For one, despite living in New York, one of the largest cities in the world, they live in the same neighborhood and regularly walk the same route to work. For as far as the internet can take them, they have not traveled much of a distance, and for as close as it can bring them, they may as well be worlds apart. Except they are not worlds apart, they are actually business rivals. NY152 is Joe Fox, the heir to the Fox fortune, built on high-discount chain bookstores that are crushing small businesses like the one run by Shopgirl. She’s really Kathleen Kelly, proprietress of the Shop Around the Corner (the name of that 1940 Lubitsch film), a children’s bookstore she inherited from her mother. Thus, when Joe and Kathleen meet, the wrong kind of sparks fly, dooming their virtual love affair if ever they find out that they are really whom they’ve never said they are. —DVDtalk.com

Director

Nora Ephron

The daughter of author/screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron, Nora Ephron was educated at Wellesley. She first made her mark as humorist, satirist, and dead-on parodist in book form (Crazy Salad) and in magazine articles. Ephron’s first movie assignment was the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Silkwood (1983). Her stormy marriage with Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein provided grist for her roman a clef Heartburn, which she adapted into a highly praised 1986 film. After years of courting cynicism and waspishness in her work, Ephron turned romantic with her script for the extremely popular When Harry Met Sally… (1989) and has remained in this vein ever since. After a few so-so writing and producing assignments, she made her directing bow with This Is My Life (1992), which she co-wrote with sister Delia Ephron. She then served as director and writer of Sleepless in Seattle, a big-time hit of 1993. Five years later, she re-teamed with Sleepless stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan for You’ve… read more

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Steve Pulaski

28Mar12

I really don't see this as a guilty pleasure. Just a great movie all around. Sweet, involving, and ultimately, lovely in every sense of the word.

Tommy

28Mar12

The Lubitsch film Shop Around the Corner is a far superior film. Not so much a guilty pleasure, but somewhat of a failed attempt to modernize an already incredible film.