On Manhattan's Upper West Side, Kathleen Kelly runs The Shop Around the Corner, an independent children's bookstore she inherited from her mother. She is in a relationship with Frank Navasky, a left-leaning columnist for The New York Observer. While Frank is devoted to his typewriter, Kathleen prefers her laptop and using her AOL email account, under the screen name "Shopgirl", to exchange messages with "NY152", whom she first met in a chatroom. As they have agreed not to share specifics about their personal lives, she knows nothing about him other than the name of his dog, Brinkley.
"NY152" is the screen name of Joe Fox, whose family runs Fox Books, a major chain of bookstores. He is overseeing the opening of a new storefront with help from his best friend, branch manager Kevin, just a few blocks from The Shop Around the Corner. Kathleen's three shop assistants—George, Aunt Birdie, and Christina—worry the new Fox Books will hurt business, but Kathleen dismisses their concerns.
Following an outing with his 11-year-old aunt Annabel and 4-year-old half-brother Matthew, Joe stops at Kathleen's store for a storytime event. Joe and Kathleen meet and have a pleasant conversation, but when she expresses disdain for the new Fox Books store, he withholds his last name and leaves abruptly with the children. Later that week, Kathleen and Joe meet again at a book publishing party, and she learns his true identity. She accuses him of deception and spying, while he belittles her store, earning each other's hostility.
"Shopgirl" writes to "NY152" asking for business advice, and he urges her to fight back. Frank pens a column in support of The Shop Around the Corner that draws widespread attention, leading to talk show appearances, news coverage, and picketing outside Fox Books. Joe is aggravated by the negative publicity, but his father assures him everything will blow over once the new store opens.
"Shopgirl" and "NY152" decide to meet at a café. Joe is dismayed to find that his penpal is actually his professional nemesis. Initially planning to leave, he changes his mind and joins her at the table without revealing his online identity. They clash once again, and Kathleen cruelly insults him, causing Joe to leave in distress. Later that night, he receives an email from "Shopgirl", sharing that she finally stood up to an unpleasant person but now feels terrible for doing so. "NY152" apologizes for standing her up and assures her anything she said was likely deserved.
Despite efforts to save The Shop Around the Corner, business steadily declines, while the newly opened Fox Books location thrives. Kathleen makes the difficult decision to close. Later, she and Frank amicably end their relationship. Kathleen takes a break to figure out her next move, ultimately taking inspiration from her correspondence with "NY152" to write children's books. Meanwhile, Joe realizes his own feelings for Kathleen and slowly builds a face-to-face relationship with her, still keeping his online identity a secret.
Eventually, "NY152" arranges another meeting with "Shopgirl". Right before she is to meet her online friend, Joe confesses his feelings, imploring her to forgive him for their past animosity. Kathleen becomes emotional, hinting that she feels the same way but cannot bring herself to forego her feelings for "NY152". Upon arriving at the meeting place, she hears a man's voice calling for Brinkley and sees that "NY152" is, in fact, Joe Fox. Kathleen cries tears of joy and reveals that she hoped it would be him, and they share a kiss.
You've Got Mail is based on the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklós László and its adaptations.[4]Parfumerie was later remade as The Shop Around the Corner, a 1940 film by Ernst Lubitsch, which in 1949 was adapted as a musical film, In the Good Old Summertime by Robert Z. Leonard starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson and, finally, in 1963 as a Broadway musical with She Loves Me by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (composer and lyricist, respectively, of Fiddler on the Roof). You've Got Mail updates that concept with the use of email, and the lead character's workplace is named "The Shop Around the Corner" as a nod to the 1940 film.[5] Influences from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice can also be seen in the relationship between Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly—a reference pointed out by these characters actually discussing Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in the film. The joke when Tom Hanks explains that the little girl is really his aunt is taken from Israel Zangwill's story "A New Matrimonial Relation" in The Bachelors' Club (1891).[6]
Delia Ephron, recalling the film's bookstore setting, said, "Once we decided that she would be an independent-bookstore owner, the reason we made it a children's bookstore is, I think, we always tried to make movies as personal as we could. To find the thing in it that was personal. And we grew up loving children's books more than anything."[8]Nora Ephron similarly remarked in the film's audio commentary, "This was something that was very important to us—that there be first editions of old children's books. It's part of what make [sic] this a serious bookstore. We wanted to sell the idea that this was a place that really cared about the history of children's literature."[8] Additionally, Ephron had Ryan and Burns rehearse and work in an actual bookstore for a week prior to filming in order to get them into character.[10]
The film's original website remained live until at least May 10, 2018.[12] The website has proven to be fodder for criticism of web design from the 1990s.[13][14][15]
A soundtrack was released on December 1, 1998, featuring a mixture of classics from the 1950s and 1970s, particularly the work of Harry Nilsson, as well as new original recordings and covers.[16] The score to the film was written by English composer George Fenton.[17]
Reception
Box office
You've Got Mail grossed $115.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $135 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $250.8 million.[2] The film debuted at number one at the North American box office above The Prince of Egypt, earning $18.4 million on its opening weekend.[18]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, You've Got Mail holds an approval rating of 70% based on 89 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Great chemistry between the leads made this a warm and charming delight."[19]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 58 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[20] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of A− on a scale of A to F.[21]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-out-of-four stars and lauded the "immensely lovable" main characters.[22]Janet Maslin of The New York Times also praised the film, writing of the leads, "Ms. Ryan plays her role blithely and credibly this time, with an air of freshness, a minimum of cute fidgeting and a lot of fond chemistry with Mr. Hanks. And he continues to amaze. Once again, he fully inhabits a new role without any obvious actorly behavior, to the point where comparisons to James Stewart ... really cannot be avoided."[23] Lael Loewenstein of Variety similarly called it a "winning romantic comedy" and praised the chemistry between Hanks and Ryan, writing, "they show why they are two of Hollywood's most bankable and, in many ways, most traditional stars."[24] and Gene Shalit on the Today Show called the film "exciting and enchanting".
Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club disliked the film, and wrote: "Takes almost two self-infatuated, smarmy, condescending, cringe-inducingly sentimental hours to reach its pre-ordained conclusion" and called the film "almost unwatchably saccharine, representing pretty much everything wrong with today's big-budget, high-concept Hollywood filmmaking."[25] Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post criticized the film's use of product placement and its overly "adorable" characters, writing, "For some reason, this film made me feel like a Christmas goose being fattened for slaughter. Its force-fed diet of whimsy cloyed long before the eagerly anticipated romantic payoff arrived to put me out of my misery."[26] Maitland McDonagh also criticized the incongruous product placement "In a film about the ruthless corporate destruction of small businesses, it's hard not to flinch at the prominent placement accorded IBM, Starbucks, and AOL logos."[27]Rolling Stone later included You've Got Mail in their list of "Most Egregious Product Placements in Movie & TV History" for the film's frequent use of AOL trademarks (AOL would later merge with film distributor Warner Bros' parent company Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner in 2000).[28]
