You've Got Mail (Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s nine and a half years since we saw - and liked - the 1990s film ‘You’ve Got Mail’. So we decided it would make a pleasant evening’s viewing to re-watch it. Neither of us had any memories of the story, other than that a correspondence was involved. And anything with Tom Hanks is usually worth seeing more than once.

As the story opens, we learn about an ongoing secretive online conversation between two people who are in good relationships with other people. Kathleen (Meg Ryan) waits until her boyfriend Frank (Greg Kinnear) has gone to work before she sits down at her computer and checks for mail. The film is only twenty years old but the computer part looks very dated as an old-fashioned graphic pops up, saying ‘You’ve got mail!’

The correspondence appears to be quite innocent. Kathleen and Joe met in a chatroom, but they only know each other’s ‘handles’, and that they live in the same city. They talk mostly about trivialities, but there’s also some deeper discussion, of the kind that can happen online more easily than in real life.

We then see Kathleen at work, where she’s the owner of a bookshop. She and her co-workers are hard-working and caring, and spend time doing stories for children and other community activities. They’re a bit worried that a mega-store is going up just over the road, and it’s destroying smaller shops. And then we learn something that Kathleen doesn’t learn until the end of the film: that her secret, caring correspondent is also the hard-nosed businessman who is about to put her out of business.

So the story involves their meeting in real life, and disliking each other intensely at first. Joe is clearly attracted to Kathleen, but puts business and money first, and seems to care nothing for her career, or her shop. And as conflict begins, so their online correspondence goes into deeper levels as she asks her online friend for advice about what to do….

It sounds more complicated than it is. It’s very well done on screen, with some extremely clever timing and great dialogue. Tom Hanks is perfect in the role, and the chemistry between him and Meg Ryan is excellent. Of course the concept is slightly ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter at all; once the premise is accepted, the question has to be: how long can they keep up the two separate relationships without any overlap? And what will happen when either or both of them find out…?

There are some terrific supporting roles: Greg Kinnear as Kathleen’s boyfriend is a reporter, and totally on her side, fighting for her shop to remain open. Jean Stapleton as the elderly shop accountant is also superb, with some great one-liners. There were places where we smiled, and even chuckled once or twice. And one place - when Kathleen locks her bookshop up for the last time - which was almost unbearably poignant.

Although I’m always a tad dubious about hard-nosed businessmen or other dislikeable characters falling in love with nice women, it works so well in this film that I had almost forgotten, by the end, just how unpleasant Joe has been.

The rating is PG, which seems about right. Although there are some innuendos and other hints of ‘adult’ conversation, the few scenes showing a bedroom have the occupants fully clothed in pyjamas. I don’t recall any strong language although there are some milder expletives used. And it’s not the kind of story that would appeal to anyone under the age of about 12 or 13 anyway.

All in all, I thought it an ideal evening’s viewing, an almost perfect ‘rom-com’.

Definitely recommended.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's DVD Reviews