Review: You've Got Mail

There is only so much sweetness and light I can stomach before thoughts of mass destruction pervade every fiber of my being. It was all of 15 minutes before I realized You've Got Mail would be the cinematic version of Chinese water torture.

You've Got Mail is a remake of a sparkling 1940 Ernst Lubitsch romantic comedy, The Shop Around the Corner, which starred James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as rival salesclerks who also happened to be each other's beloved pen pal. It's a remake. That's problem number one. Problem number two: I loved the original. Mind you, all that is supposed to go out of my head once the lights dim and the opening credits roll. But as I sat there watching Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan compete with children belting out show tunes and animals doing their adorable schtick, one question reverberated through my head: Why? Why am I sitting here in this theater wasting brain cells on this drivel? Why am I watching Nora Ephron, who cowrote and directed this feeble attempt at romantic screwball comedy, celebrate Starbucks and parties where caviar is used as a garnish? Why?

Readers, I sat there dumbfounded. I kept on watching, mildly hoping that some interest would be stirred in the story of Joe Fox (Hanks) and Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). She owns a neighborhood children's bookstore; he is the big bad owner of a chain of superstores, the latest of which is about to put Kathleen out of business. They bicker, they quarrel. They hate each other in person but when they get online as NY152 and Shopgirl, they're head over heels for one another. Ryan rolls her eyes, crinkles her nose; her body goes into its pert, spasmic expressions of flummoxed frustration. Hanks does his charming Everyman routine. Where is this going and how long will it take to get there?

Then, lo and behold: a miracle occurs in the second act! I begin to care. After the dueling bookstores plotline is mercifully jettisoned, the romantic sparks begin to fly. Joe discovers that his cyber soulmate is Kathleen. Having resolved to meet each other, Joe backs down from revealing himself and instead aggravates Kathleen, who cuts him down to size with some uncharacteristically harsh words. When Joe faces his laptop, his heart is at a standstill. Should he write to Shopgirl again even though he is well aware that she's Kathleen? And will Kathleen forgive NY152 for standing her up?

As in Sleepless in Seattle, Hanks and Ryan are kept apart by circumstances beyond their control. At least in Sleepless, there was a sense of soulmates separated by fate's ironic hand. There was yearning, there was magic. Perhaps it's the clinical nature of the electronic age that dampens the romanticism. While Ephron cleverly updated its source, she should be chastised for inserting too many jokes targeted at antiquities such as typewriters and the art of letter-writing. It's almost as if she's looking back in scorn though I'm sure she herself feels the art never should have been lost. Electronic correspondence is such an impersonal medium -- an impossibility it is then for the beginning scenes to have any snap, crackle and pop. For the truth of the matter is, the email exchanges -- which run the gamut from philosophical to Seinfeldian -- between Joe and Kathleen are not emblematic of electronic correspondence. Forget how poor the spelling and grammar tend to be, the deepest exchange that would occur in cyber life would be whether or not Bill Gates rocks more than Dilbert.

How wonderful and encouraging then that Joe and Kathleen's cyber rapport becomes more poignant once the human connection is made. When Joe counsels Kathleen on how to deal with NY152, You've Got Mail transforms into an inverted Cyrano de Bergerac -- the hero helps his own cause. Ultimately, email becomes another facade we present to the world.

Parker Posey and Greg Kinnear, as Joe and Kathleen's respective cling-ons, buoy the fumblingly precious first half as do Steve Zahn, as Kathleen's not-a-morning-person coworker and Dabney Coleman as Joe's babysitter-loving father. After much dithering, Hanks and Ryan shine like a million stars in the midnight sky in act two. Ryan's pixilated screwball becomes worthy of our adoration and Hanks, ever so suave with a punchline, injects soul into Joe's heartache.

You've Got Mail

Directed by: Nora Ephron

Written by: Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron; adapted from Miklós László's play The Shop Around the Corner

Starring: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Steve Zahn, Jean Stapleton, Dabney Coleman