You’ve Got Mail

You’ve Got Mail is a romantic comedy. Another rematch of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the film was directed by Nora Ephron and is a remake of the Ernst Lubitsch film The Shop Around the Corner. The film, according to the director, is as much about the Upper West Side of New York and the ‘small town community’ feel it has as the love story.

After much media hype the film opened to record box office numbers. Audiences were desperate to see Ryan and Hanks paired up again and were not disappointed. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks reprise their roles as lovers who are meant to be but just quite can’t get their act together. Both are brilliant and viewers found their chemistry undeniable and still intact after the five years since they had starred on screen in Sleepless in Seattle.

The New York locations for the film are perfect for this quiet little love story and makes the city seem much friendlier than it often seems.

Hanks plays the big business book store owner who is the business rival of Ryan’s character who owns a small independent book shop which was passed to her by her mother. However, the characters are also interacting online and slowly falling in love with each other; and, of course, the comedy and irony abound when each discovers who the other really is.

Cinema release 1998

Certificate PG

Available on DVD and Blue Ray