Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan teamed up again for the third time [Joe Versus Valcano, 1990 and Sleepless in Seattle, 1993] to make a delightful 1998 romantic comedy called "You've Got Mail". Obviously Tom and Meg go together like coffee and cream or two peas in a pod. They may have gotten to know each other well from the other two movies they did together; so perhaps they were not acting at all but just being loving friends toward one another as loving friends do. I just saw this movie yesterday with new eyes. I was delighted and facinated by it for the following reasons:
1) As a writer, I was keenly listening to all the lines. This movie was carefully edited because there was not one extraneouis word in it. Every line and every scene were perfect to move the story forward.
2) The directing by Nora Ephron was perfect. Now why would you think Nora did such a perfect job as if she herself were taking the parts in the movie? She was so "one" with her cast, so "one" with the story line, and so "one" with every scene because SHE wrote it! She ought to know what she wanted to say with this movie because she knew exactly what she wanted to say in her own Manuscript.
3) Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) and Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) have a love relationship on line but in reality they are full of animosity for one another off line. Of course neither know who the other is off line. This tension between being "in love" with a man and being "in love" with a woman you are really out-of-love with in real
life is a good story line. Joe Fox puts Kathleen Kelly out of business by making a mega-store: Fox Books right across the street form her little book's store. She has resentment toward Joe Fox; but he learns that she is the one he has been writing love letters to on line. Joe Fox begins to fall for her in reality. He courts her on and off line now by meeting her and advising her how to handle himslef while she has no clue he is the one she loves. He is clever and shows her subtly that he is the guy by saying things that only her mystery man can say in the way he says it. She gets confused. He off line asks her to forgive him. She never does in the film. But all works well for her financially and career wife because he in the end marries Joe Fox and they both live happily ever after. God story line? Very good!
4) The acting of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan was perfect because they were just being themselves. The greatest stars are those who are the same off screen as they are on the screen. Some of these greats are James Stewart, Gary Grant, Humphy Bogart, Loretta Young, and Judy Garland.
5) The most delightful thing to me is the "use of words." Words to a writer are like colors to an artist. How you put them together is how beautiful the art work becomes. Even using the instant mail through the internet makes a romance move quickly. In the old days when snail mail was the only way and when letters came from overseas in weeks, romance grew slower. Psychologists also caution internet dating users that a false intimacy and emotion can spring up on internet dating exchanges. People project unto another quatities and charm they do not possess in reality. It has been known that persons on line who are writing intimate stuff are not even a woman or man we expected them to be but were the opposite sex then they claimed to be. This false identity can go on for a long while. Some of these men are predators. So, we must be careful on line. But in this movie, all the words written between Joe and Kathleen are perfect as well. Joe - when he stood her up at the restaurant [actually he did go but went as himself not her mystery man] - tried to make excuses on line to Kathleen. But his lies were so out of charcter to his love for her that he deleted every one. He told her the truth but not all of it. Here is the bottom line: "WORDS ARE SACRED". Theologically, Jesus is the WORD of God. After the Incarnation, all words have taken on a character and life of their own. When a writer writes a novel or essay or shot story or a blog, once those words leave his hands, they have a life of their own and say something to the reader that wouid startle him if he knew. Remember, we take in knowlege not as knowlege is but as we are. We color every thing with our view, our emotions, our past experiences, our education, our opinion, our mind-set, our philosophy and our theology. How is then that our words ever get across at all. They don't. The writer just opens the reader to the thoughts in her own mind. She is grateful of the writer has helped her to see what she was thinking in the first place.
6) The ending of the movie makes it - with all of the above - a cinematic Masterpiece. Why? The ending is a culmination of their love, a resolution of all animosity, a fulfillment not only of their desire to sell books to open the minds of children - big and small - and the obtaining for both of them their hearts' desire: an eternal love for one another. Kathleen says it all for both of them when she says in tears: "I wanted him to be you!" She was in fact in love with two men: the one on line and the one she grew to love: Joe Fox. How can this dual love be reconciled? How can her heart be "one"? Her hesitant and long kiss of Joe reconciles all and fulfills all and give all a perfect ending. She has not a tinge of conflict. She has her beloved in her arms and will never let him go. Her mom in heaven who started the book store 42 years ago was smiling as well. This is not only a feel-good movie. It is a portrait-masterpiece of "true love" that says "true love is possible
.........for you....and for me!"
Well, the next time you see "You've Got Mail", please think about what I have just said above; and hopefully, you will enjoy it as much as I did. Have a great movie night!
Love, Pio
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