Good things get better.
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If the hallmark of a good romantic comedy is that when you're finished with it, you feel your eyes have teared up and you didn't want it to end, then 1998's "You've Got Mail" is a good romantic comedy. For its tenth anniversary (can it really be ten years?), Warner Bros. have remastered the video, added several new special attractions, and repackaged it as a "Deluxe" edition. Good things get better.
You've got to like this film. You've got two of the most personable actors in Hollywood, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, in the starring roles. You've got screenwriter and director Nora Ephron at the helm. You've got the same filmmaking team's prior hit, "Sleepless in Seattle," to bank on. You've got a supporting cast of Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Dabney Coleman, and Jean Stapleton. You've got all those wonderful New York City Upper West Side locales. What's not to like?
Nora and Elia Ephron based their screenplay for "You've Got Mail" on two previous films, "The Shop Around the Corner," 1940, and its musical remake, "In the Gold Old Summertime," 1949. Hanks gets the part formerly played by Jimmy Stewart and Van Johnson, and he's tailor-made for it. Hanks has become today's Jimmy Stewart common guy. Leave the Gary Cooper Everyman heroics to other people; Hanks is the average Joe we can all readily relate to. However, here he plays something a little more than an average Joe; he plays Joe Fox, what a surprise, a multimillionaire owner of a fancy Barnes & Noble-type, super-bargain discount bookstore that opens up near a little, independent, children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan). Still, despite Joe's money and despite the fact that both his father and his grandfather are ruthless businessmen, he is still your average Mr. Nice Guy at heart. It just takes a while for us (and for him) to see that heart. Kathleen, on the other hand, is all sweetness and light, a woman a little hard to believe she's so kind and caring.
Since Joe's super store is driving Kathleen's little shop out of business, understandably, Kathleen and Joe take an immediate dislike for one another. But that's par for a romantic comedy. While the two principal characters in a standard romantic comedy must instantly fall in love, the audience must see that they are meant for each other, the two participants must not realize they're in love until the final scene. In the case of Kathleen and Joe, little do they realize that they are on-line computer pals, falling in love without ever having met in person. Thus, the movie's tag line, "Someone you pass on the street may already be the love of your life."
The story line is slight, almost inconsequential, as the relationship between the two characters is foremost. Joe represents the insensitive, big-time conglomerates that are devouring the individuality of small companies. Kathleen is the old line, family businesswoman caught in the grip of economic forces too overwhelming for her to combat. He is a modern kind of guy, ambitious, self-absorbed, drinking Starbucks' coffee, and espousing a personal philosophy gleaned from "The Godfather." She is a naive, sincere innocent, cute as a bug's ear. How these two completely different personalities finally connect is the subject of our two hours screen time.
Of course, it helps their situation that Joe's current girlfriend (played by Parker Posey) is a shallow, mean-spirited book editor (how any such airhead could ever be a book editor is anybody's guess) and that Kathleen's boyfriend (played by Greg Kinnear) is a nerdy, self-righteous newspaper writer in love with his own words. So we can dispose of these contrary interests early.
It seemed to me a little unfair, though, that Joe should find out about Kathleen's real identity much sooner than she finds out about his; and it was a little hard to believe that he would make such a major change of attitude as he does in so short a time; but, hey, that's the movies for you. It's a romantic comedy. Anything can happen.
Video:
The Deluxe edition's keep case says that the movie is now "remastered." As the Wife-O-Meter and I watched it again, we both thought it looked better than we remembered. So afterwards, I did a spot check on the bit rates for a dozen selected scenes, and, sure enough, the new edition was higher in every case. The screen size remains the same, naturally, at 1.85:1, which fits snugly into a widescreen television ratio, but I could no longer find most of the previous transfer's minor imperfections. I only noticed a touch of graininess in a few brightly colored scenes, particularly the closing shot of blue sky; and the occasional flickering lines I had observed before were largely absent. Colors are now brighter and deeper than before, definition improved, and black levels blacker than ever. It looks terrific.
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