Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

You've Got Mail (1998)

Director: Nora Ephron

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Few acquainted with the work of Nora Ephron and Ernst Lubitsch would expect her remake of his The Shop Around the Corner (1940) to be anything but inferior to one of the most delicate, poignant romantic comedies ever made. But in updating to the e-mail era the still potentially fertile story of anonymous pen pals who never knowingly meet but whose letters grow intimate in inverse proportion to their professional animosity, Ephron has produced a travesty, opting for every manipulative trick available. First, from her earlier Sleepless in Seattle, she reunites Ryan, sickeningly ditzy but earnest from her first appearance as the chintzy indie kids' bookseller, and Hanks, flabby and implausibly flexible as the superstore tycoon who threatens to put her out of business but finally does the right thing. Second, there's the ludicrously twee brownstone Manhattan setting. Third, the clumsily loaded characterisation not only treats almost every other figure as dispensable, but doesn't even bother to make Meg and Tom properly sympathetic.

Author: GA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.