The Hanks Conundrum

What happened to the trope of women booksellers? It feels like one day we all just woke up and instead of female leads shelving books in libraries and male leads drafting on architecture tables we had something called "Marketing Associate."

Of course, we all know what happened--

It was the 2000s.

--but that doesn't mean we have to give up the ghost entirely.

You've Got Mail (1998) was practically formed off the combination. Kathleen Kelly, otherwise known as the inimitable Meg Ryan, is a bookseller about to go out of business when she meets Joe Fox (Tom Hanks). Her rival's son.

Except it turns out that they've already met -- on the internet.

Dial-up, yo

AOL Instant Messenger is the centerpiece of the movie, and the undoubted inspiration point. I can only imagine the buildup was similar to when that guy wrote that script for that film that was going to be "about Facebook."

What redeems the movie is the chemistry; Hanks in particular is as sharp and clever as he ever gets. But let's be honest. The man could have good chemistry with a sock.

Or some chairs.

It's not even the best Hanks-Ryan combo--that would be Sleepless in Seattle, which is too perfect to critique.

What You've Got Mail is, really, is an antique. I say this because it so perfectly captures a moment in time--the late '90s, when AOL was just starting to become a thing--that to look back on it is to look at something so perfectly comprehensive as to be absolute. I mean, people who were zero years old when You've Got Mail was released are now sixteen and watching it still feels like yesterday.

Like Cary Grant, it's aged well.

It does make me wonder: how will filmmakers portray Tinder? (A word which, though I am the target audience, I had to check the spelling of twice.) Will it be a romantic tale of two people connected by the mere swipe of a thumb, or will it be humdrum and pedestrian? I hope the former, because in fifteen years a lot changes.

Heart, though. That stays the same.