ROM COM MONDAY: You've Got Mail (1998)

Before Tinder there was e-mail…

In a world, long ago, e-mail was the way to express your feelings, to forge bonds and to find your better half in chatrooms. Meg Ryan plays Kathleen Kelly, owner of the independent children’s bookstore The Shop Around the Corner which she inherited from her mother. Tom Hanks is Joe Fox, member of the wealthy Fox family with their national chain bookstores Fox Books. When a Fox Books-branch opens around the corner from Kathleen’s shop, the two become sworn enemies. However, what they don’t realise, is that they’ve been corresponding via e-mail for months using the screen names ‘Shopgirl’ and ‘NY152’ and have been slowly falling for each other.

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YOU’VE GOT MAIL is based on the play Parfumerie by Miklós László and its earlier movie adaptations, such as Ernst Lubitsch’ THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. Nora and sister Delia Ephron wrote the screenplay themselves and transported the universal story of enemies-to-lovers to the zeitgeist of the late nineties. The casting of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks reunites the charismatic duo after their collaborations on JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO (1990) and Nora Ephron’s SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993). Even though the technologies in YOU’VE GOT MAIL might feel dated, it’s the timeless themes, such as the search for connection, miscommunication and unexpected romance, that make the movie as relevant today as during its release thirty years ago. YOU’VE GOT MAIL touches on a subject that remains an important question in this highly technological social media age as well: how do we present ourselves online versus in reality?

Writer-director Nora Ephron manages to create an iconic romcom and a movie that – despite its 90s look and feel – still resonates with everyone who is looking for connection in a modern world where personal life is more and more played out in the digital world. “Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.”

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Part of ROM COM MONDAY!

! To attend to the whole programme, you need to make a separate reservation on our website !

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Direction Nora Ephron

US, 1998, 119 min

Cast Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, Greg Kinnear

Spoken language English

Subtitles Dutch