When I moved to New York City in the mid-1990s, I lived on the Upper West Side, and a frequent hangout spot was Cafe Lalo on West 83rd between Amsterdam and Broadway. It was a place where you could get coffee and dessert after a late movie (it was open well past midnight). My friends and I would often meet there for a light dinner before seeing a Shakespeare in the Park performance. You could hear live jazz and not a corporate-approved CD compilation.
Cafe Lalo unfortunately closed in 2020 — at first “temporarily” and then officially in 2022. There’s some sad irony in this, as the cafe gained fame when it was featured in Nora Ephron’s 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, a film whose plot centered on the inevitable death of a local business.
Meg Ryan is Kathleen Kelly, the owner of an independent children’s bookstore she inherited from her mother. It’s called The Shop Around The Corner, a reference to the 1940 film of the same name starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, which I presume Kathleen has never seen because it shares the same plot as You’ve Got Mail. Stewart and Sullavan’s characters are employees at the same gift shop who can’t stand each other but don’t realize they’re falling in love as anonymous pen pals. The modern twist is that Kathleen is chatting online as “Shopgirl” with someone named “NY152,” who’s actually Joe Fox (Tom Hanks), whose family runs the corporate book chain that’s putting Kathleen’s little shop out of business. “Shopgirl” and “NY152” met in an AOL chat room, because people used AOL back then. Sadly, I’ve had to explain to people much younger than myself the background behind the film’s title: “You’ve Got Mail” was what you’d hear when you signed on AOL and, well, had mail. “Shopgirl” explains the thrill of that notification in a message to “NY152”: “I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail, from you.”
Kathleen has a boyfriend, by the way. They’re practically living together in her charming Upper West Side apartment, and she’s having an affair. The film opens with stuffy Frank (Greg Kinnear) decrying modern technology and warning Kathleen, “You think this machine (her computer) your friend but it’s not!” He’s a liberal newspaper columnist, so the internet is about to ruin him personally and professionally. As soon as he leaves, Kathleen scampers off to her computer to check for messages from “NY152.”
You’ve Got Mail establishes its leading lady as cheating on her perfectly nice boyfriend within the first scene. You’d think this was gritty film noir, not a bubbly romantic comedy. This might put off modern audiences, but back in the 1990s, most people didn’t consider the internet “real.” And, in fairness, “Shopgirl” and “NY152’s” relationship isn’t based in reality. They know nothing about each other. (Joe also has a serious girlfriend, played by the wonderful Parker Posey, who he derisively describes as someone who “makes coffee nervous.”) Back in the late 20th Century, there were no online video chats or even easy access to digital photos. You didn’t know how the other person looked or sounded, and despite the refrain that you were connecting with the “real person” inside, we see that Kathleen and Joe work hard at presenting a certain image of themselves online. It’s all a fantasy, sort of emotional pornography.
Kathleen isn’t just a cheater. She’s also a hypocrite, as she’s seen buying coffee at Starbuck’s, which I wasn’t even doing yet as a New Yorker in 1998. Starbuck’s, you might recall, is a major corporate coffee chain that put local independent coffee shops out of business the same way Fox Books does to The Shop Around The Corner, by seizing prime real estate and undercutting competitor prices. The first Starbucks in New York was on Broadway and 87th and didn’t open until 1994. There’s no way that lifelong Upper West Sider Kathleen didn’t patronize other coffee shops before Starbucks arrived, but she was seduced by the venti cappuccino.
When Kathleen and Joe actually meet in real life, unaware they are “Shopgirl” and “NY152,” there is an immediate attraction. It just all goes to hell once Kathleen learns that Joe is the Joe Fox from Fox Books. There are obvious allusions to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but Kathleen doesn’t judge Joe prematurely. He is the dreaded corporate titan who gleefully crushes independent booksellers.
Unlike Mr. Darcy, Joe’s problem isn’t excessive pride. No, he’s a coward and a liar. He hides his identity from Kathleen when they first meet at her store and then later when he learns she’s “Shopgirl.” The online daters agree to meet in person at Cafe Lalo, which was on the street where writer/director Nora Ephron once lived. This is when the film falls apart for me. In The Shop Around The Corner, Jimmy Stewart’s character also learns the truth but Joe is far more manipulative. He plays on Kathleen’s insecurities, knowing she is waiting to meet someone who’s seemingly stood her up. The last thing anyone wants in that situation is to talk to someone they dislike, but Joe practically delights in her discomfort and obvious humiliation.
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Joe continues to toy with Kathleen, competing with his own “NY152” persona until she miraculously falls in love with him. Admittedly, he is Tom Hanks, who’s hard not to love. Still, Joe’s character arc should’ve involved learning that lying is wrong, but that doesn’t happen.
I think Ephron’s point is that love is about more than superficial commonalities. Kathleen and Frank are perfect for each other on paper, but their relationship is passionless. (Frank is also pretentious and self-important.) Joe and Kathleen have a genuine rapport, even if they don’t like the same things. Kathleen states with certainty that she could never be with someone who owned a boat, but Joe has a boat! Joe says he could never be with someone who likes Joni Mitchell, but Kathleen loves Joni because she has “two ears and a heart.” Reading an online dating profile from the period, someone could easily dismiss “boat owner” or “Joni lover” and miss out on a meaningful connection. Joe laments that if he “hadn’t been Fox Books,” they would have hit it off immediately, but that’s the problem — you can’t build a relationship divorced from who you truly are. Yes, people try all the time but those relationships usually end in divorce.
“Shopgirl” and “NY152” finally meet in person, and Kathleen doesn’t mind that he was Joe Fox all along. “I wanted it to be you,” she says through tears, and then they kiss. This should not have worked. Can you imagine their New York Times “Vows” feature? (I suppose it would’ve just been a description of this movie.)
Fox Books putting The Shop Around The Corner out of business ultimately works out in Kathleen’s benefit. It forces her to put the past behind her and escape the trap of nostalgia. She was running the bookstore in tribute to her late mother, but she wasn’t sure it was what she wanted out of her life. When she tries to discuss this with Frank, he talks past her, while going on about the manual typewriter he’d just purchased. He loves her because she runs a bookstore. Like that typewriter, she’s another symbol of his crusade against modernity.
It’s true, also, that The Shop Around The Corner would have eventually folded even without Fox Books. Even if her loyal customers were willing to pay more money for the same books, Kathleen would have struggled to keep up with the rising rent on her prime Upper West Side location, and her staff would have revolted because she couldn’t offer a “living wage” for New York.
Fox Books was an obvious expy for Barnes & Noble, which were all over New York at the time. Although Amazon killed most brick-and-mortar bookstores, Barnes & Noble managed to survive and announced plans this year to open 60 new stores. CEO James Daunt has suggested he’d allow the sale of AI-written books Barnes & Noble long as they “[don’t] pretend to be something else and [aren’t] ripping off somebody else.” The obvious You’ve Got Mail sequel would involve Joe and Kathleen’s son embracing AI books to his parents’ horror.
I remain fond of You’ve Got Mail because it reminds me of 1990s New York, particularly my first neighborhood, whose streets and sounds I can still recall in vivid detail. The movie at least endures as its own curious cultural artifact, even if Cafe Lalo is no longer there for that late night cappuccino and cheesecake.
I love all things 90s and Meg Ryan, and looking back at this flick it's clear it was prophetic in a lot of ways-the influence of the internet on our romantic lives (yours truly met my husband in an online discussion forum) as well as the loss of many independent businesses to huge corporations (Amazon wasn't a thing then, but Fox Books is a reasonable stand in). It never really made sense to me that she would fall for the guy out to ruin her (Him: "It's not personal!" Her: "It is to me!") no matter how charmingly Tom Hanks he was! But it did unwittingly give us a glimpse of the world very soon to come, and maybe we should have taken more heed...