Review of You`ve Got Mail

Introduction

Following the success of Sleepless in Seattle, it was inevitable that sooner or later a studio would get Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks back together for another movie.

You’ve Got Mail not only takes the two stars from Sleepless, but also the director, and why not – there’s no need to break up a winning team.

The basic synopsis is as follows: Hanks and Ryan met in a “over 30s” chat room on the internet and have been in communicating via email ever since. They have never met, have never exchanged any personal details but are drawn together by their electronic conversations. Ryan is the owner of a small children’s bookshop, threatened by the opening of a discount book superstore around the corner, run by Hanks. In business they are enemies, not knowing about their private relationship.

Video

Video comes in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and as with most other Warner Home Video titles, the picture quality is very high throughout the movie. There’s no evidence of dirt, grain or noise on the image, which is stable and colourful.

This is a character-based movie and therefore doesn’t rely on visual effects, concentrating on the cast, and to a limited degree the surrounding, all of which are well filmed.

Audio

The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 but to be honest you really wouldn’t notice – the movie is about the dialogue, not sound flying around the room. Obviously then clarity of speech is paramount and the soundtrack doesn’t let the viewer down.

Features

Extra features include a trailer, director’s commentary, a featurette, a look at New York’s West Side, isolated score (Dolby Digital 2.0) and a DVD-ROM interview gallery and “audio bytes”. Digging around on the DVD-ROM in Windows Explorer also uncovered a screensaver that wasn’t mentioned on the packaging!

The featurette consists mainly of an interview with the director, with some input from Hanks and Ryan and although containing plenty of the usual backslapping and film clips, is quite interesting.

The look at the West Side is also quite interesting and gives an insight into the locations used in the movie.

Conclusion

Overall, fans of romantic comedies will like this. Meg Ryan, as usual is radiant, Tom Hanks gives his usual excellent performance and despite the story being fairly corny, this is entertaining stuff.

The video and sound are both good and there’s also a reasonable selection of extras on offer, making this a good all round package – particularly with Warner’s low price tag.