"You've Got Mail" (1998)

I first saw You've Got Mail (1998) in the theater when I was home on Christmas Break during my freshman year of college.  I went to see it with my high school bestie, and I knew it was going to be a long-time favorite by the time we finished that first viewing.  

As soon as it hit the video rental stores, my college friends and I rented it.  And then rented it again.  Because I was a poor college student, buying a movie on VHS as soon as it got released was like the ultimate honor I could pay to it.  And this was one of those rare movies I just had to buy right away and have as my very own to watch whenever I wanted to, and who cares if it cost more than it would in a few months.  

Of course, this was back when a movie finally was available to buy on VHS several months after it was available to rent (and it arrived at the rental shops six months or so after it was in the theater -- this is how we learned patience).  So we'd been able to rent it quite a few times before I was able to own my own copy.

My roommates and I proceeded to watch my copy over and over and over.  Friends frequently borrowed it.  One friend had to buy her own copy at the end of the school year so she could watch it.  

And why were we so obsessed with You've Got Mail?  

We were all young women in our late teens or early twenties, and most of us were hoping to meet a nice guy at college and fall in love and get married.  And I think that was a huge part of this movie's appeal: Tom Hanks can play really nice guys.  Approachable guys.  Guys who don't seem like they're out of the realm of possibility for an average girl to get together with.  My friends and I were realistic about our chances of attracting a guy who looked like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt (never happening), but Tom Hanks was just enough of an average joe that we would have a chance with him.

And who doesn't want to have someone fall in love with who you really are?  Someone you can share your most whimsical, quirky, oddball, funky thoughts with?  Someone who takes the time to understand you?

That's what You've Got Mail is all about.

And, for book nerds like me, all the bookish goodness was a total perk.

Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) runs a children's book store in New York City called Shop Around the Corner.  She's warm and bubbly and quirky and feisty and complicated.  She's been online pen pals with a stranger for months.  They met in a chat room, bonded over loving NYC, and started exchanging their thoughts on various subjects, just for fun.

Kathleen's livelihood is threatened by the impending opening of a Fox Books mega bookstore nearby.  Her boyfriend, an opinionated newspaper columnist (Greg Kinnear), helps her organize a protest campaign to block the "big box" Fox Books from opening and ruining the indie-stores-only vibe of the neighborhood.

Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) is the third-generation businessman running the family company, Fox Books.  He's snarky and witty and sharp and kind and complicated.  And about halfway through the movie, he discovers that the awful woman who is throwing roadblocks in his bookstore's way and mocking him in public and generally being a pain in his neck... is also the lovely woman he's been corresponding with for months and might be falling in love with.

And then things get complicated :-)

You've Got Mail is a remake of The Shop Around the Corner (1940).  And I like it better than the original, mostly because both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are playing such approachable, nice people.  The main characters in The Shop Around the Corner are both... kind of unlikeable.  I know one of them is played by Jimmy Stewart, but this is cranky Jimmy Stewart, not cuddly Jimmy Stewart.  I enjoy the movie, but I just don't love it like I love You've Got Mail.

Is this movie family friendly?  Um, fine for older teens?  Tom Hanks's character is living with his girlfriend.  A minor female side character leaves her husband for a woman.  There's some mild cussing and innuendo in dialog.  No violence, no nekkid people, not bedroom scenes.

This has been my contribution to the Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon hosted by myself and The Midnite Drive-In all weekend!