You've Got Mail (1998) Yes, you read that headline correctly.
We're about to stomp on one of America's most beloved romcoms.......starring what used to be American's most beloved movie sweethearts.
How could we do this, you ask? ("You're going to throw shade on 'You've Got Mail'? Seriously? Whaddya do for an encore.....kick a puppy? Drown a kitten?")
Let us explain ourselves. We got the idea for this post after we found ourselves in a discussion about movies with the worst endings.
Everybody loves to weigh in on this topic, cause they think it's about movies that have NO endings.....(like "No Country For Old Men", etc, etc,.....)
True enough, everyone could easily think of movies that had no real conclusion, they just....uh...stopped. Stopped dead. Leaving an audience scratching their heads, muttering, "Say what now?"
Easy peasy. Which is why we much preferred delving into movies that most definitely had an ending.....but a rotten one.
Which brings us the allegedly sweet and adorable "You've Got Mail"......about a bookseller (Meg Ryan) whose entire reason for existence, the wonderful children's bookstore left to her by her late mother, is devastated and eliminated by a corporate swashbuckler (Tom Hanks) whose massive national bookstore chain delights in putting independent bookstores out of business.
Tom's character, along with his rapacious father and grandfather, live by lines of dialogue extracted from "The Godfather".....as in, "it's not personal,,,,,it's just business".
So naturally, after Meg's store is no more, ground into the dust by Tom's mammoth pseudo Barnes & Noble, she and Tom fall in love. Kissing and hugging ensue. Fade Out.
Bullshit.
As we personally have been involved with Mom 'n Pop family operations that were wiped out by big chains, we can tell you this.......not in this world or any other, would Meg Ryan end up with the guy who crushed her life's work like a steamroller.
Take it from us....it's not just business. It IS f***in' personal.
But because Hanks was such a cute 'n cuddly charming romcom leading man, we're supposed to swallow this unlikely ending along with the tub of butter popcorn.
We realize we may find ourselves a minority of one here. The movie was huge hit. Everybody loved it. Well.....almost everybody.
Except us. We might have loved it if this had happened......if Hanks greedy family had sold the chain to a Japanese conglomerate and then pushed him out of the company as part of a routine corporate restructuring.
Which would have at least left Hanks and Ryan on an equal footing......facing unemployment in the brave new world of business piracy.
That's why this movie will never get anything more than 1 star (*) from us, no matter how adorable it is. We. Believe. Its. Ending. Sucks.
Aaaaahhh. That felt so good to get off our chest. And tomorrow's TGIF!
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