Unless you grew up during the internet’s stone age, then you may have never heard the “You’ve got mail” voice that used to play when AOL users got an email. In its heyday, AOL was omnipresent on the web, and its catchphrase was the inspiration for the 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, which is our pick for the one Hulu movie that you need to watch in February.
Valentine’s Day is in the rear-view mirror, but a good rom-com is always seasonal. The late Nora Ephron — who was one of the best female directors — co-wrote You’ve Got Mail with her sister, Delia Ephron, while taking inspiration from the 1940 romance flick, The Shop Around the Corner.
To depict the anonymous online soul mates, Ephron turned to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, whom she had previously directed in Sleepless in Seattle. Unlike that film, Hanks and Ryan spend more time on-screen together in You’ve Got Mail even though their respective characters, Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly, initially hate each other. This movie needed Hanks and Ryan’s inherent likability to let the audience follow this journey without turning on either of their characters. But if you’ve ever loved rom-coms, these are the reasons why you should watch You’ve Got Mail on Hulu in February.
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have great on-screen chemistry
In the ’90s, casting either Tom Hanks or Meg Ryan in a rom-com was already half the battle. There’s simply an innate quality in their on-screen personas that makes the audience root for them. This was critical in You’ve Got Mail, because their first in-person meetings in the film lead to a very contentious relationship. Kathleen owns a small bookstore in New York called The Shop Around the Corner, while Joe’s family owns Fox Books, a megastore that’s moving in nearby that may drive Kathleen out of business.
Joe and Kathleen really and truly don’t like each other once they learn that they’re professional competitors. But neither of them are initially aware that they’ve been anonymously corresponding via email and sharing a lot of their innermost thoughts without identifying themselves by name. Their online connection is so intense that they develop romantic feelings for each other without either person ever having exchanged a pic.
The story delicately handles its romance
Cultural norms have changed a lot since this film was released in 1998, but even for that era, You’ve Got Mail skirts into some ethically dubious territory when Joe learns that Kathleen is the object of his affection and chooses not to tell her. He is initially disappointed to learn that the woman he connected with is the one who hates him like no other, but Joe eventually realizes that he has more feelings for Kathleen than he does for his own fiancée, Patricia Eden (Parker Posey).
The ethically dubious part is that Joe tries to redeem himself in Kathleen’s eyes while maintaining their anonymous correspondence without letting her in on the fact that he’s already in her life. That would be called stalker behavior now, but we forgive Joe for his choices because it’s clear that Kathleen has feelings for both of his personas, and she’s conflicted about which one she really loves.
It’s charmingly dated
One of the reasons Joe and Kathleen are able to get on better terms is that she visits Fox Books and decides that it isn’t as bad as she feared it was. The irony is that in the 27 years since this film came out, online shopping has decimated the big bookstore franchises like the one Fox Books was meant to represent. There are still a handful of bookstores, but most of them are now independent like Kathleen’s shop.
Online dating has also drastically changed since You’ve Got Mail was in theaters. Some people even seem more comfortable having an intimate relationship with strangers they’ll never meet than with the individuals who actually interact with them on a daily basis. Catfishing is also a thing in the present, although neither Joe nor Kathleen knowingly did that to each other. Their bond in this film is still charming, but it would be hard to recreate in the modern world.
It’s an antidote to modern cynicism
We’re not going to spoil the specific way that You’ve Got Mail ends. The truth is that most rom-coms have the same ending, with the featured couple overcoming their differences to build a future together. But the reason why we keep coming back to You’ve Got Mail is that it makes us believe that love is more than just a physical connection. And that even two diametrically opposed people can overlook each others’ flaws and find something in each other that’s deserving of love. Who doesn’t love a happy ending? In reality, not everyone gets to have one. But watching two people find happiness feels like an antidote to the world we’re living in now.
Watch You’ve Got Mail on Hulu.
