Happy Fifth Anniversary To Me: You’ve Got Mail Is How I Spent (Part Of) It!

The Good: Concept, Final third of the movie, Acting is good
The Bad: Predictable, Drags in the middle
The Basics: After almost twenty years of avoiding it, my wife compelled me to watch You’ve Got Mail and I found it to be good, not great.


Tonight is my five year anniversary with my wife and as the night progresses, we’ve done all of the usual anniversary things (albeit out of order by conventional standards, I think). Tonight, she managed to get me to watch a movie that I think I had no interest in whatsoever and might even have boycotted at the time of its release (send me thousands of CD-ROMs in the mail over the years, AOL, I’ll boycott the film based on your catchphrase!). As it stands, it was not until tonight that I finally saw You’ve Got Mail. You’ve Got Mail is a thoroughly appropriate film for my wife and I for an anniversary (traditionally a time to reminisce about relationships beginning); she and I met on the internet and had a very short courtship before meeting in person, moving in together, and marrying! As such, the speed of the relationship in You’ve Got Mail did not seem at all off to me.

Despite any criticisms which might follow, You’ve Got Mail is better than I expected it to be. My preconception of the film was a cheesy romance film that largely featured two people sitting in front of their computers typing as opposed to interacting in person. The truth of You’ve Got Mail is that it accurately captures the early excitement of on-line relationships and ironically, had the movie focused more on that, it would have been a better film.

Opening with Kathleen Kelly, who is in a romantic relationship with the technophobic columnist Frank Navasky, excitedly e-mailing a mysterious stranger she met in an on-line chatroom for people over thirty, Kathleen’s life is at a turning point she does not yet know about. Unbeknownst to her, her on-line pen pal is Joe Fox, a businessman who is bringing a giant, discount book chain to New York City. Kelly, who inherited her mother’s children’s book store, tries not to see the arrival of Fox & Sons Books as a threat to her business. Joe and Kathleen meet one day at Kathleen’s book store while Joe is out with his (very) young brother and aunt (who, thanks to the family’s complicated geneology, is about twenty years younger than he is). While Joe and Kathleen continue to e-mail one another without knowing who the other is, when Kathleen learns who Joe is at a party, she takes an instant dislike to him.

On the advice of Joe (who does not have details about Kathleen’s specific business to know that he is operating against himself), Kathleen begins to wage a public relations campaign against Joe and his father’s mass-market bookstore. Unfortunately, the result is less-than-stellar and Kathleen has to close her book store. In the wake of Joe ruining her business, Kathleen and Joe begin to run into one another more frequently, with Joe learning that Kathleen is the woman he has been corresponding with on-line. Despite Joe dropping clues to Kathleen that he is her online suitor, Kathleen’s prejudice against Joe takes some time to burn off so their in-person romance can actually begin.

You’ve Got Mail suffers from being an erratic movie that seems to abandon its own premise instead of developing it. While usually, getting away from the film’s catchphrase conceit – in this case the e-mail relationship – would be smart and work well, with You’ve Got Mail, the opposite happens. The movie gets so caught up in the real world, adversarial relationship between Joe and Kathleen and their competing book stores and business philosophies that when the e-mail relationship is abruptly dropped and then equally abruptly picked up much later on in the movie, it feels like the film’s writers actually forgot what they were trying to say with the film.

As a result, You’ve Got Mail is a rare example of a film that has a vastly better final third than the rest of the movie. After mortgaging its premise for most of the airtime, the movie comes back to reassert its original idea in a good way . . . but almost too long after the viewer stops caring. In simpler terms, You’ve Got Mail would have been better if it had either dropped the e-mail relationship near the beginning and moved past that entirely or stuck with it more consistently. As it stands, the relationships become troublingly rendered on both fronts: Kathleen seems unnecessarily dim and Joe is presented with a weird dichotomy (he speaks like a sage, but is treated like a knave).

On the acting front, You’ve Got Mail is more a triumph for Meg Ryan than it is for Tom Hanks. The two play their roles of Kathleen and Joe without the trademark on-screen chemistry that made them box office draws when paired together in the late-90’s. That said, Ryan has a much perkier physical performance than in anything else I have seen her in. She bounces through the beginning of You’ve Got Mail in a watchable and cute way that sells her character (instead of making one feel like they are watching Meg Ryan). Tom Hanks plays Joe Fox with a seriousness and dryness that is compelling to watch. Hanks and Ryan play, as is predictable for a Nora Ephron film, with an incredible ensemble cast that includes Parker Posey (Joe’s initial girlfriend, Patricia), Greg Kinnear, Steve Zahn, Jean Stapleton, Dave Chappelle, and Katie Finneran.

Ultimately, You’ve Got Mail is an enjoyable romance film, but it does not have the timeless quality of some other romantic works from the 1990s and that makes it feel more dated and passé . . . just like AOL.

For other modern romantic movie classics, please check out my reviews of:
When Harry Met Sally . . .
Love, Actually
The American President

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Subtle Perfection Of A Romantic Comedy Done Right: When Harry Met Sally. . .

The Good: Acting, Romance, Characters, Humor holds up over many viewings, Assembly, Direction
The Bad: Somewhat obvious set up (I'm stretching here!), None in truth
The Basics: Who are you and why haven't you seen this classic, perfect romantic comedy yet?! Funny, charming and well-developed, When Harry Met Sally. . . is a winner.


Romantic comedies tend to suffer in my reviews because the average romantic comedy is predictable beyond belief and when you've seen it once, you've seen it a hundred times. In short, because most romantic comedies are about the establishment of a romantic relationship and usually who the characters will end up with is pretty much a function of casting (i.e. usually the two top-billed performers are the ones who hook up), there's little surprise to most romantic comedies. The way the most successful romantic comedies get around that is by creating unique and interesting characters, like in Love Actually (reviewed here!) and/or playing with the notion of a romantic comedy exploding the limitations of the genre, like The Incredibly True Adventure Of Two Girls In Love (reviewed here!). One of the few romantic comedies that does this perfectly is When Harry Met Sally. . .

Harry Burns meets Sally Albright when they split driving responsibilities on a twelve hour drive to New York where they are starting their post college lives. Harry annoys Sally almost the entire way. Their trip concludes with Sally wishing they could be friends but Harry declaring that men and women cannot just be friends and they part way. Years later, Sally and Harry run into one another on a flight and Harry amends his prior comment; women and men can be friends if both are in relationships, so they can now be friends. Harry's wife soon leaves him, however, and Sally's relationship falls apart, too. They spend years becoming better and better friends while their mutual friends Marie and Jess fall in love and marry. As their friendship grows, they move toward an inevitable romantic relationship, but - of course - there are complications . . .

What makes When Harry Met Sally. . . work so well is that it follows an excruciatingly realistic pace. While so many romantic comedies rush into sex, relationship and forced conflict, this is a film that explores the conflict of various relationships and delays the romance for a long time. Featuring interstitials of couples telling how they fell in love between the various time jumps, When Harry Met Sally. . . takes the time to develop an actual friendship between the protagonists that makes their relationship viable, interesting and an intriguing basis for love. In short, by the time Harry and Sally start actually moving toward a relationship, they feel like they are already in a meaningful one.

It works extraordinarily well and this is one of the films that succeeds admirably because the lead actors have genuine chemistry. The characters spend much of the movie looking in every direction but each other and that makes for an interesting character study. Both are well defined and as they share common interests, like watching "Casablanca" together in their respective apartments by having each other on the line while viewing it, the viewer enjoys watching them bond.

These are two characters genuinely relating and that's something that we rarely see in films these days. Too often the chemistry between characters or actors is assumed. Far too often the characters in a romantic comedy follow the three date, have sex, be in a relationship formula - though lately, there is a tendency toward characters to "slip" and have sex on the first date and that provides much of what is supposed to be the comedy. Sigh. When Harry Met Sally. . . is still something different in that regard. Harry and Sally are around one another for years before romance even enters into their dialogue.

In some ways, this is also one of the last successful "odd couple" type pairings. Sally has underwear for each day of the week and a laundry list of dietary concerns. Harry is generally slovenly (I still laugh every time he starts spitting grape seeds out of the car while the window is still up). Harry is quirky and opens Sally up to absurdity like spending a day speaking in an accent while wandering a museum, Sally brings a sense of calm and care to Harry's life and opens him up to a broader life philosophy.

The relationship between Harry and Sally is mirrored by the much quicker, but no less solid, relationship between Marie and Jess. They are funny and watching their foibles realistically delays Sally and Harry from rushing their relationship. Moreover, it keeps the pace of the movie bearable. As Harry and Sally struggle for years to relate and befriend one another and move past their difficulties of past relationships, Marie and Jess offer a very satisfying pair to sink some of our hopes into. We accept the delay of the protagonists because the world they live in is still filled with less tenuous love and that makes the movie work.

As well, there's a wonderful moment when Jess and Marie turn to one another and say "Promise me I'll never be single again!" that is just beautiful. Jess is played by Bruno Kirby and it's refreshing to see such a realistic-looking adult get such a decent role. I'm not staying that Kirby stands out as the luckiest character actor in a long time to be married off (in the movie) to Carrie Fisher, but it's nice to see people who don't have the same homogenous "desperate to look young and sexy" look in movies. Carrie Fisher gives a memorable performance as Marie and it's nice to see her in a role that is so different from the nagging Princess Leia that made her career. Here she is mature, articulate, emotionally connected and a delight to watch.

Much of the movie hinges on Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as Harry and Sally. Ryan's performance in this movie made her the darling of romantic comedies for almost a decade and it's easy to see why. In When Harry Met Sally. . ., Ryan is cute, articulate and her neurosis is fun to watch for most viewers. She plays the role with a simple, "good American girl" quality that she effortlessly portrays and does so well.

Ryan has surprisingly good on-screen chemistry with costar Billy Crystal. Crystal plays the oddball well and here he keeps it in check enough to create a genuine and memorable character. He slouches through the role and everything that comes out of his mouth, no matter how contrary to our personal experience he presents as perfectly credible, such is the strength of his performance. Even if the viewer does not believe what he is saying, we believe Harry believes his own philosophies. That's great acting on Crystal's part.

When Harry Met Sally. . . was written by Nora Ephron and she shows an excellent balance in her characterizations. Neither of the characters feels like they were written in a way that is inorganic (ever watched a movie where a male character says something and it pulls you out of the movie and you say "That line was written by a woman?" There's nothing like that in this script!). Director Rob Reiner does an excellent job keeping the movie flowing whenever it seems like it could fall into a slow point.

At the end of the day, this is a perfect romantic comedy and well worth the time and attention of all audiences. It shows an adult story of two people falling in love over a long period of time that does not feel so long. Told with humor that holds up over multiple viewings and great characters, When Harry Met Sally. . . is a must-see!

For other romantic comedies, please visit my reviews of:
Chasing Amy
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Valentine’s Day

10/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Half Worthwhile, Half Annoying, Ultimately Worth Only One Viewing: Julie & Julia Disappoints.

The Good: The entire Julia Child plot, Most of the performances
The Bad: Almost the entire Julie Powell plot, Moments when Streep slips out of character
The Basics: Erratic in the way it mixes a past and contemporary plot, Julie & Julia is lackluster chick flick fare which fails to resonate even with its target demographic.


[Note: As there are almost no experiences my mother and I shared together, I am opting to keep the opening to this review – which was originally written based on a preview screening of the film over a month prior to the cinematic release – unchanged. Enjoy!

There are few times I actually consider the theatrical experience, despite the fact that I often find myself these days in crowded movie theaters watching the latest movies with large audiences. But sometimes, I encounter something of note that leaves me baffled and feeling the need to discuss the phenomenon outside the work that inspired it. Today, what has me baffled was a result of the film Julie & Julia. I caught an early screening of the film a few nights ago - I was able to take my mother, which made her happy, as she is a big fan of Nora Ephron's works - and as the movie plodded along, I watched and listened to the audience. There were few laughs, few moments when anyone reacted. I thought this odd because preview screenings like the one I attended tend to be filled with people who are predisposed toward a work. Throughout the movie, the audience was largely quiet; they did not laugh, they did not cheer, they did not react for almost the entire film. But when the movie was over, the horde of women (the screening was predominately women) began to erupt into enthusiastic conversations about how much they had enjoyed the movie they had just seen.

Here's the thing, I'm a respectful first-viewer, but I find myself smiling, laughing or otherwise reacting during movies. As a seasoned viewer and reviewer, it did not take me long to realize that the reason I was able to observe so much of the audience during Julie & Julia was because I was largely bored with the movie. I suspect that most of the screening audience was and while there were certainly elements to praise about Julie & Julia, on the balance it is an erratic work whose most significant moments were shown in the preview trailers and that this is a film where the longer people have away from it, the less they will enjoy about it. In fact, my bet would be that people who were at the same screening as me would have little to say about the movie other than "Meryl Streep was great as Julia Child." She was, but even her performance was not flawless and one has to wonder why director Nora Ephron included certain takes in the film's final print.

Julie & Julia is a blending of two stories, poorly, one contemporary, one from the past. In 1945, Julia Child and her husband, Paul, arrive in France to work at the United States Embassy. As Paul establishes himself, Julia flounders and searches for something to do which will make her feel (and be) useful. In 2002, Julie Powell arrives with her husband Eric in Queens where the two take up residence over a pizza place so Eric may be closer to his work. Amid the pressure from her successful friends, Julie strives to actually do something with her life, as she spends her days working for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp and has no real authority of zest in her life.

Julie's solution is to start a blog and for one year, she begins going through the recipes of Julia Child from Child's famous book on cooking French cuisine. As Julie struggles to maintain her goal and grows in popularity on the internet, the film looks back to Julia Child, who becomes one of the first women to take advanced cooking lessons at the prestigious French culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu. As she learns to cook, she finds herself in the company of two French women who are looking to teach cooking and sell a book in the United States on French cooking.

The plot is remarkably simple and the title implies it all and the film's trailers reveal it all: Julie Powell seeks gratification and acknowledgment as a writer by taking on the task of cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook over the course of 365 days. While she wends her way through the cookbook, the film flashes back to the process of Julia Child becoming the world-renowned chef she was ultimately considered. The only question potential viewers will have after seeing the trailer is "Does Julie Powell succeed in her goal?"

The problem is, after the first few minutes of the movie, it is almost impossible to care. (Actually, attentive viewers to the trailer can figure out the answer as some of the final shots from the film are in the revealing promotional trailer.) The viewer knows the outcome of the Julia Child plot: Child will succeed in getting her cookbook published and readers everywhere will eventually flock to it. So, the only question in the Julia Child section is "how does Child get the book published?" Unfortunately, much of the beginning of the movie is bogged down with the Julie Powell plot and it is such a dud that it almost instantly crushes the momentum of the film.

Julie Powell, in Julie & Julia (I've never met the Julie Powell in real life) is boring, whiny and utterly without qualities worth watching. She complains about her job and the move with her husband and as she whines through the early scenes, viewers are unlikely to care whether or not she makes a goal and sticks to it, we just want her to grow up! In fact, her irksome tendency to complain is epitomized in such melodramatic phrases as "Ritual cobb salad lunch tomorrow. Dreading. Dreading. Dreading." In this stereotypical chick-flick scene, Julie gets together with her three friends, they all order variants of cobb salads and complain about their work (though her friends spend most of the time on their cell phones or digital voice recorders). Powell is characterized not so much as a woman who has friends with incongruent lifestyles, but rather as a woman content to be walked all over by her friends and otherwise neglected. When Powell declares that she has thoughts she could blog about, it comes at a point where most viewers will not care what those thoughts are and as she winds through the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook, the cooking takes place as quick cuts and final product shots and most of the plot is mired in the melodrama of Powell's home life.

By contrast, the Julia Child sections of the movie are wonderful and they become a welcome respite for the viewer from the whiny, annoying and over-the-top Powell. The irony here is that Julia Child is a tall, loud, energetic woman who is presented as over-the-top, but her struggles are more compelling and interesting than the faux-conflicts that come up with Powell, who has disproportionately (childlike) meltdowns over them. Child labors for respect only after she is actualized by her desire to be useful to herself and her husband. Her sections of the film are welcome respites from the Powell plot and the moment the film shifts back from the past to contemporary times, my stomach sank almost every time.

Nora Ephron, who adapted the books this movie was based upon into the screenplay and then directed the film, does a decent job of creating the two stories and developing them, but she is trapped using material that is half wonderful, half not so much. Ephron, who proved her ability to write complex and engaging romantic storylines with When Harry Met Sally is unfortunately given two stories that do not work nearly so well interweaving with Julie & Julia; and Ephron sure tries. Opening with what might seem like a schmaltzy shot of ground zero in Manhattan, Ephron quickly recovers by explaining away the use of the World Trade Center rubble for the necessary explanation of Julie Powell's ennui. Ephron then attempts to make parallels between not only the characters of Julie Powell and Julia Child (both government workers, both escaped their monotony through cooking, both were married, etc.) but the time periods. And while there are great parallels to be made between the early 1950s and the rise of McCarthyism and the reign of George W. Bush, Ephron makes weak connections. Paul Child is targeted by McCarthy and his goons and he and Julia suffer transfers as a result. Julie Powell and her husband have no similar political ramifications for their backstories, so Ephron's attempt falls terribly short (for a much better peek into the McCarthy-like parallels during the George W. Bush years, please check out Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, reviewed here).

One of the things Ephron does quite well is not insult the intelligence of her audience. Julia Child is motivated in this by a need to feel useful, at least in part, by the fact that she is barren. One scene easily establishes this idea without making it explicit and another reinforces it wonderfully. Ephron never states it directly and this is a pleasant surprise for viewers. Unfortunately, so much of the rest of Julie & Julia is formulaic in the most unpleasant ways. As a result, Julie and her husband have all of the predictable conflicts and reconciliations that the film seems to feel the need to have. Unfortunately, they are formulaic and they are presented without any real emotional depth to them.

What Ephron does well is she fixes her mediocre recipe using great ingredients. Amy Adams is hard to discuss as Julie Powell because the character is so annoying and difficult to watch and her costar, Chris Messina is relegated to generic spouse status as Eric Powell, but both seem to be adequate in Julie & Julia. Meryl Streep is amazing as Julia Child, though. Ephron cast Streep perfectly and Streep lives up to the challenge, creating the flamboyant and fun Child in a way that makes it possible for the viewer to close their eyes and hear Julia Child perfectly. Unfortunately, even Streep's performance is not the absolute gem most would want it to be. While Streep is great, there are at least three moments in the film where Streep stops using the Julia Child voice and falls into her own. These moments stand out as memorable because in those few moments, Streep does not even carry herself the way she does the rest of the movie.

But the one who never slips is Stanley Tucci. It might seem odd in a film geared toward women with an amazing cast of prestigious or great actresses that the most laudable performance would come from a man, but Stanley Tucci does it perfectly as Paul Child. He plays Paul with a great emotional range, from quiet and supportive to eager and giddy and in every moment, he is unlike any other character he has played. His performance is so good, one wishes that he were in the movie more and that this had simply been a film about the life of Paul and Julia Child.

Ultimately, the best I can recommend is if you have the chance, see Julie & Julia once, but when it comes out on DVD don't bother with adding it to your collection. And in the hard and fast system of "thumbs up, thumbs down" or "recommend, not recommend," this is too tough a sell to advocate recommending. There is just not enough to keep viewers engaged and certainly not enough to come back to again and again.

For other works with Amy Adams, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Leap Year
Charlie Wilson’s War

6/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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