My Favorite Literary Adaptation

Everyone has a “go-to” movie. You know, the movie that makes you happy when you’re sad; allows you to forget your troubles for a few hours when you’re stressed; and generally makes you feel like you’ve been wrapped in the softest blanket imaginable. To me, that movie is “You’ve Got Mail”, which is a literary adaptation. Most articles written about the movie say that it’s a remake of 1940’s “The Shop Around The Corner”, but it goes back a bit farther than that, and has roots in literature. Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) would approve.

Let’s go back to 1937 and a play by Miklos Lazlo named “Parfumerie”, about feuding co-workers who are also secret pen-pals in love with one another, George Horvath and Amalia Balash. Sound familiar? In 1940, it was remade into the classic “The Shop Around The Corner” with Margaret Sullivan and Jimmy Stewart in the lead roles, with the character names changed to Alfred Kralik and Klara Novak. Hollywood decided that there needed to be a musical version of this movie, and “In The Good Old Summertime” was born, premiering in 1949, and starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson as quarreling music-store employees Veronica Fisher and Andrew Delby Larkin. I love musicals, but I had never heard of this movie or one song in it until I decided to write this post!

Speaking of musicals (one of my other obsessions), “Parfumerie” and “The Shop Around The Corner” spawned an actual Broadway musical in 1963 called “She Loves Me”, which kept the Amalia Balash character but renamed the lead male character Georg Nowack, played by Barbara Cook and Daniel Massey. (It was revived in 2016 starring Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi and I saw it TWICE-one on the Broadway HD Channel and once at a movie theater, but that’s a story for another time.) This musical is smart and funny, and every bit as good as “The Shop Around The Corner,” but with catchy, singable tunes. Listen to “Illona” once and try to get it out of your head. I dare you.

Which brings us to 1998’s “You’ve Got Mail”, Nora Ephron’s love letter to bookstores, books, and the burgeoning digital age, which is, I think, why I love it so much. That, and Meg Ryan’s cardigans. I’m convinced her wardrobe in this movie is what began my love affair with the aforementioned clothing, not to mention a life-long attraction to J.Crew, Gap, and Land's End. Between Meg Ryan in this movie and Jennifer Aniston’s wardrobe in "Friends", I was set for the 1990s and early 2000s. Ahem. Sorry to get off-subject there. (Not really.)

In “You’ve Got Mail”, Meg Ryan plays Kathleen Kelly and Tom Hanks plays Joe Fox, two rival booksellers (instead of working in the same store, as in previous incarnations) who are also secret email pen pals, thanks to an AOL chat room (hence the title). The big change in this movie from previous versions is the small fact that Kathleen and Joe are both in relationships with other (kind of awful, douchey) people played by Greg Kinnear and Parker Posey, but still. That makes Kathleen and Joe cheating cheaters, having this emotional affair. Kathleen owns an independent bookstore that specializes in children’s books named “The Shop Around The Corner” and Joe Fox is the CEO of a big Barnes & Noble-type chain called “Fox Books”.

One of my favorite parts of this movie is the sweeping shots of both bookstores. “The Shop Around the Corner” is an intimate space, and you can see the history in every corner. I always imagined myself walking through that store, talking about “Little Women'' and Ramona Quimby with Kathleen before she placed the perfect book in my hands, one that I hadn’t heard of before walking into her store, but she knows I’ll love. Fox Books, in contrast, is sprawling and slightly overwhelming but no less (in my opinion) wonderful. It’s a bookstore you can get lost in, wandering through the shelves and picking up a stack of books that have been on your list while your significant other (who may not be as into books as you) can sit and sip coffee while watching the people.

But the real love story, and where I think the true beauty lies, is not between Kathleen and Joe, although their story is funny and sweet and lovely. Watching them become friends and make discoveries about one another is like receiving a warm hug. It's a classic enemies-to-lovers story, and while I'm not a huge fan of that trope, this movie and watching their relationship unfold (and their conversations about books) really touches a soft spot in my lump of coal where a heart should be. But I digress. The real love story in “You’ve Got Mail” is between Kathleen and her store, which she inherited from her mother, and incidentally, her love of books. Even Joe, businessman that he is, is a reader. He and Kathleen exchange letters describing the books that they’ve read and loved or hated. And what do bookish people want more than to find someone else who loves books just as much as they do, even if they’re not the same books? Because every story between a reader and their books is a love story.