I am not one for promoting the romantic comedy, but they are still better than the romantic drama. I have two favorites that are romantic comedies both starring Meg Ryan, When Harry met Sally… and You've Got Mail. However, I don't know if I would have liked either movie if there were different leading men. In You've Got Mail, Tom Hanks does a wonderful job acting (when was the last time he didn't) and makes a good movie great.

The basics of the movie are that two people meet each other in a chat room on the internet and enjoy each others company via email. They agree that they cannot give each other any personal information and they can't meet. This stipulation creates problems because in the both own bookstores that are in direct competition. Kathleen Kelley (played by Ryan) owns a small children's bookstore, The Shop Around the Corner, and Joe Fox (Hanks) owns the monster super bookstore Fox Books. Of course the writer, who is also the director, Nora Ephron, plays on the stereotypes of the two stores. Kathleen's bookstore is small and cute and they charge high prices and provide excellent personal service. Fox Books is a large store where the employees can't spell book let alone help people find one, but they offer incredible discounts which is all that is important to the robotic consumer. Kathleen meets Joe in here bookstore where Joe takes his 8 year Aunt and 4 year old brother to watch her tell a story (That's right Ephron is playing on the old billionaires having attractive young women by have Joe's grandfather, played by the now deceased John Randolph, have a 8 year old daughter and Fox's father, played by Dabney Coleman, have a 4 year old son.) Well eventually Kathleen learned who Joe was and begins a verbal war against him to save her store. While this is going on their relationship is blossoming online. So it comes down to what's going to happen when they find out they these online lovers are hated enemies?

I love Hanks in this movie. He plays every emotion at the right time and his acting is believable. Meg Ryan is just as good she does everything flawlessly. All of the other actors-Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, David Chappelle, and Jean Stapleton, are great. The problem I have is with the story. The ending is way to Hollywood, my female roommate said that if that was here she would have been pissed off. Also Ephron plays way too much on the stereotypes of the big bad corporate world verses the independent store owner. The corporate guys are big bad money grubbing evil doers, the employees are not knowledgeable, while in the small family run store, they are starving college students who are just trying to get by. It pisses me off that she plays on it a little too much. But the movie is still very enjoyable.

Like I said this is a very enjoyable movie, I don't know if I would have watched without Tom Hanks in it, but it is still good none the less.

Brian - the Naked Gun