In the world of writer-director Nora Ephron, everyone is witty, well-read, well-educated about movies, and a hopeless romantic ... everyone who matters anyhow. Characters who don't meet those qualifications are almost certain to end up on the sidelines. So it is with "You've Got Mail," in which Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks play E-mail correspondents who share an intimate, anonymous relationship on-line, punctuated by references to "Pride and Prejudice" (from her) and "The Godfather" (from him). In cyberspace, they're Shopgirl and NY152; in business, they're Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox, rival bookstore owners who begin feuding when Joe builds one of his Fox Books megastores steps away from Kathleen's childrens' literature emporium The Shop Around The Corner, a New York staple for 42 years. Neither Joe nor Kathleen knows who they're writing to, since they met in a chatroom and have been intentionally vague about their identities. Thus, they have no clue they're spilling their deepest secrets to someone they regard as an enemy. If you thought Hanks and Ryan were endearing in their previous teamings in "Sleepless In Seattle" and "Joe Versus the Volcano," you ain't seen nothing yet. "Mail" allows them to work up a bit of friction and to hurl a few zingers at each other, yet neither star has ever seemed more appealing. Even when he's being snide, Hanks manages to retain his cuddliness, and though Ephron pushes the "cute" button a bit vigorously with too many shots of Ryan's shadowboxing -- she looks about as tough as the Robber Kitten -- no director makes Ryan look lovelier than Ephron. The dialogue is predictably punchy, with the best lines charitably divided amongst all the movie's major players, including Parker Posey as Joe's girlfriend, a power-mad publisher who notes when an associate dies, it "makes one less person I'm not speaking to," and Greg Kinnear as Kathleen's beau, a columnist whose language can be best described as over the top. "You're a lone reed, standing tall, waving boldly in the corrupt sands of commerce," he gushes as Kathleen organizes her crusade against Fox. Although one of the biggest laughs from the audience came when they saw how easily and quickly Kathleen and Joe accessed America On-Line, "Mail" also features a wonderfully weird joke about Joe's relatives, a welcome appearance by Steve Zahn as one of Kathleen's slightly daft employees, and a terrific set-piece involving Kathleen's embarassment in a check-out line; it's easily the sharpest scene of this type since Debra Winger's similar run-in with a haughty clerk in "Terms of Endearment." So smooth and engaging is "Mail" that even when its plot stalls it doesn't seem like time is being wasted. If everyone on the Internet were this much fun to spend time with as these characters, no one would ever log off. James Sanford
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