Double Feature: The Shop Around the Corner x You’ve Got Mail

This film proves two points: the 1990s was the most wholesome decade of the 20th century (at least in the US), and Nora Ephron is a genius of modern romantic comedy. In You’ve Got Mail,  a remake of The Shop Around the Corner, the director replaces the traditional letter-driven plot with a turn-of-the-millennium romance. The story’s protagonists wait until they are home alone to focus on a frantic email correspondence. On one end there’s Meg Ryan, and, on the other, Tom Hanks: the 1990s power couple who helped romantic comedy regain its former lustre. She runs a charming independent bookshop and loves Pride and Prejudice. He, as in The Godfather, “goes to war” and develops the family business: a huge chain of commercial bookstores. Fate brings them together in her bookshop – The Shop Around the Corner, which (like the entire film) is a nostalgic trip to a better time, when bookstores weren’t soulless, the online world was full of potential rather than threats, and no one constantly looked at their mobile phone. Love is in full bloom, and we can hear Over the Rainbow playing in the background. It’s beautiful.

Patrycja Mucha

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) was an American journalist, novelist, screenwriter and director. She had her breakthrough with her screenplay for When Harry Met Sally (1989). After that she directed a string of romantic comedies, all of which she co-wrote, often working with her sister Delia Ephron. The most popular of these are Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998). Her last film was the biographical comedy-drama Julie & Julia (2009).