You’ve Got Mail at 25: how Nora Ephron’s romcom preserves the innocent dawn of digital dating

You've Got Mail: Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in a scene from "You''ve Got Mail."

Credit: Getty

Film


You’ve Got Mail at 25: how Nora Ephron’s romcom preserves the innocent dawn of digital dating

By Jess Bacon

2 years ago

5 min read

Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail turns 25 this month. To celebrate, Stylist revisits the cult classic that preserves the charming beginnings of finding love online, which offers hope for modern daters.


Before the first emoji had even been invented, Kathleen Kennedy waited patiently by her laptop to hear those three little words: “You’ve got mail.” As her dial-up internet buzzed to life, Kathleen loaded AOL to instant message an online friend, NY152, whom she’d met in an over-30s chatroom as ShopGirl.

After a roaring success with When Harry Met Sally, Nora Ephron, the queen of romantic comedies, returned to the genre with Meg Ryan in tow alongside her frequent collaborator Tom Hanks for You’ve Got Mail. It was the second time the duo had fronted an Ephron romcom together following Sleepless In Seattle in 1993. 

Their charming 1998 collaboration followed independent children’s bookstore owner Kathleen Kelly as her beloved family-run shop was threatened with closure by the arrival of Fox Books right around the corner. 

There’s a quintessential autumnal quality to the film that is revived annually by the trend affectionately dubbed ‘Meg Ryan fall’, which sees those who celebrate wrap up in thick knits, stroll through fallen leaves and embrace the wholesome, cosy quality of the season. Ephron has the rare ability to make films that feel like warm hugs, the effect of which we feel even decades later. Step out on a crisp fall morning in a cable knit or walk around New York in autumn and it’s hard not to feel like a main character in an Ephron romcom. 

You’ve Got Mail was also one of the first digital dating romcoms, which captured the innocent charm of the concept when it first began. The digital space mirrored the physical as people entered virtual rooms to find friends or romantic partners based on their age group. It was a simpler time that wasn’t so obviously tainted by the cruel or dangerous undertones of talking to strangers online that’s become the focus of many acclaimed documentaries, such as The Tinder Swindler.

One of the many endearing qualities of this film is the novelty and innocence of Kathleen and Joe’s online connection. Kathleen springs out of bed to see what her virtual friend has written today after she says a half-absent goodbye to her live-in, self-involved boyfriend Frank (Greg Kinnear). Similarly, Joe rolls his eyes at his dramatic girlfriend Patricia (Parker Posey) as she bolts out the door, half-eaten toast in hand, before he indulges in a civilised, no-strings-attached conversation with ShopGirl.

Neither of their other halves know about their online pen pals, but it’s merely a place to discuss literature, movies and business without inhibition and enjoy an outside perspective on your situation. It was a revolutionary film for its time, back when not everyone had a home computer. 

You've Got Mail.

Credit: Warner Bros.

Ryan famously received her first computer while working on the film. Meanwhile, the studio had to ask the user with the name ‘Shopgirl’ on AOL to change it so Kathleen could use her email address in the film. 

Woven into the romcom are homages to Parfumerie, the 1937 play that inspired Ephron to co-write You’ve Got Mail with her sister, Delia. Kathleen’s bookstore is even named The Shop Around The Corner after the 1940 big-screen adaptation, while the interiors paid tribute to New York’s oldest and largest independent children’s bookstore, Books Of Wonder.

The wholesomeness of this love story didn’t stop there. Ephron commissioned a website for the 80s romcom that stored all of Joe and Kathleen’s emails for fans to read, which remained live for 20 years afterwards (the site closed in 2018).

Fast forward a quarter of a century and films about online dating are often posed through a darker, grittier lens, while dating apps have become a breeding ground for the anxieties and horror stories of connecting with strangers online. 

From cannibalism in Fresh and kidnapping in Missing to violence in Cat Person, audiences are told that one online date could lead to horrific, traumatic places; the suggestion that it might ultimately lead to love is rare. In contemporary romcoms like Bros, dating apps are the butt of the joke and it’s insinuated that they’re a farcical tool incapable of finding anything more than one night with someone. Not often is a Pride And Prejudice-inspired romance like Joe and Kathleen’s on the cards.

The literary-obsessed protagonists have a delightful enemies-to-lovers trajectory, as they move from rival bookstore owners to lovers. They also indulge in a battle of wits reminiscent of Kathleen’s favourite literary couple, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, ingraining a familiar old soul feeling into a brand-new love story.  

Meg Ryan

Credit: Getty

One of the many reasons You’ve Got Mail has endured is that it offers online daters hope that they could live out their own version of a digital love story. The person you’re chatting with online could be someone who, on paper, you might reject, eg the person behind the capitalist discount bookstore around the corner.

After a charming interaction in Kathleen’s bookstore, where Joe fails to mention his last name, we’re given a first glimpse of how they interact with each other. Later, at a publishing party, the duo struggle to make it through a conversation together once Kathleen discovers who Joe is and makes assumptions about his morals and ethos; in turn, he threatens to put her out of business.

Despite their frostiness, when ShopGirl and NY152 finally decide to meet and Joe is faced with the reality that his digital penpal is a woman who hates him, he deceives her. It’s this deception that enables Joe to get to know Kathleen both as himself – slowly and more openly via an alias. 

Yet, Kathleen is granted the biggest romantic win at the end of the film, as Joe reveals that both of the men in her life are the same person – him. Cue a corny line (“I wanted it to be you so badly”) and a teary reunion to Somewhere Over The Rainbow

In You’ve Got Mail, Ephron managed to capture the essence of the innocent magic at the dawn of digital dating, which promised that the two realms of fictional love (online) and real love (in reality) could cross over. Over the years, as the dating landscape has become bleaker, Ephron’s film remains a cult classic that offers us hope that romance does exist and can be still found online.  

Images: Getty; Warner Bros

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