Gnosticism, from Wikipedia: "The human soul, originating as a divine spark in the higher world, finds itself fallen captive to matter, exiled in the realm of the senses. Spiritual development means extricating oneself from enmeshment with matter and returning to the Source, the Light of God."

Many people are surprised to hear that You've Got Mail is one of my favorite movies, but most of those surprised people will freely admit that they love the movie too. I don't blame them for their surprise, but I find the double standard intriguing - why are movie snobs not allowed to like popular movies, and inversely, why are movie novices allowed to like popular crap?

Of course, You've Got Mail is not crap but most fans of the movie may assume it is. Their reason? Oddly enough, because they like it. The casual moviegoer is taught that what they like is not good, and what they find boring is "art." The most financially successful movies of the year are very often a mix of good and bad movies, but based on their box office and pop culture appeal it is easy to assume that they are all very well liked. But what makes a movie likable? Fun, excitement, warmth, star power, and a firm classical "Hollywood" aesthetic. Most of the time these movies are ignored by cineastes and award-giving bodies, perhaps because most of them aren't very good.

You've Got Mail is, first off, a reprehensible movie. With one face it decries the evil of Corporate America and its takeover of individuality in business and commerce, while with the other face it features blatant big business product placement via AOL, Starbucks, IBM, and more. (The movie was financed by Time Warner.) That the evil corporate goon, Tom Hanks, ends up with the sincere entrepreneur, Meg Ryan, even after he has put her out of business and taken away the last thread that connects her to her mother, is a pretty clear indicator of where the movie places its allegiance. You may even say that it is Tom Hanks two-faced business sense that allows him to woo Meg Ryan after destroying her life. But, after all, deep-down, Tom Hanks is a "good guy" even though he is *gasp* a Republican and a money-maker; what is most important in life is inside of us, not outside, so sayeth the Gnostics.

But even with this convoluted morality, You've Got Mail's emotional content sides with Meg Ryan's character who is far more sincere and lovely than Tom Hanks, at least until the end. The movie begins with what seems to be a charming premise: two people living in New York communicate over the internet without realizing that they cross paths every day. In a simple montage of New York in autumn, the director (Nora Ephron) shows the audience that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan drink the same coffee, shop at the same stores, and walk the same paths. They even live on the same side of New York, no easy feat. (This montage is later recreated, but by this time the two characters have met and are trying to avoid each other). In short, Ephron is telling us, without words, that these two people are perfect for each other. Their essences are entwined together and the Internet's purpose in the plot is to lay bare their souls. Once we've accepted that these two people must end up with each other before the end credits, Ephron takes it upon herself to make this union seem impossible: as it turns out, Tom Hanks is a big businessman and Meg Ryan is a small businesswoman - they are competitors who eventually "go to the mattresses," as they say in The Godfather, although I don't think Sonny Corleone meant the sexual connotation that is inferred here.

The majority of the movie is an interplay between Hanks and Ryan's internet conversations, and their real-life conversations. In real life the two are nasty to each other, unaware that they share a tender relationship online. Ryan's character says about the internet at one point that "you're more likely to talk about nothing than something," but ultimately those nothings are more important to her - why? Because these lovers have been star cross'd, and on the Internet Ryan doesn't have to bother with how Hanks looks, or what he does for a living, or even whether he's seeing anybody; instead they get to be "who they are," which is apparently separate from what they do. "No specifics," they agree, and yet they fall in love before ever meeting.

Ephron proves her artistry with fairy tale material through directorial subtlety. True to the Hollywood formula, the camera never draws attention to itself even though it is moving and panning and following the action at all times. These camera moves become subconscious indicators of the emotions of the movie; the most expressive scene in the film, where Meg Ryan must close her store and imagines her and her mother dancing amongst the bare shelves, is accomplished with absolutely no camera movement at all. Also note the intricate yet subdued use of voiceover - Ephron uses letter-writing as an excuse to verbalize the characters' emotions and uses these audio bits as narration for the main action. The actors are not bound by such classical subtlety: they perform as if they are on stage in a farce, their responses to each others insults clearly expressed on their faces, almost as if they were in a silent movie. This expressionism in acting is in sharp contrast to Ephron's classical formality, but those two things depend on one another. Ephron also has a theatre director's knowledge of beats and acts: the film has three acts, and to transition between them she will change moods sharply, then take the time necessary to bring us back to the film's happy-go-lucky exterior. For instance, when Ryan believes that Hanks' Internet persona stood her up at the cafe, she writes a heartfelt (complete with stringed orchestration) letter that asks, "Why?" Hanks's response to this letter is, at first, sadness. He doesn't write back and walks away from his computer, and we wonder, has he given up on her? Then we see, practically from his computer's perspective, his repeated avoidance of the Internet as he humorously walks around his apartment attempting to find something else to do. Finally he sits down and writes a lie, then the truth. In regards to tone, we're back where we started.

Similarly, the opening of the film does a good job of cycling us through moods before settling on the appropriate one. With the Warner logo on the screen we hear an abrasive sound montage of internet connections and dial tones that segues, via a mouse click, into a candy colored computer generated New York that seems to exist in cyberspace, this movie's metaphor for fantasy. And fantasy is where Ephron is most comfortable. Another mouse click moves us from this cyber New York to the "real" New York, but this is hardly reality: although later she will present us with some of the seedier sides of New York, these intrusions are mild and diluted compared to the reality, or at least the realism of New York filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Even the fantasy worlds of Spike Lee and Woody Allen have a harsher tone than Ephron's kind-hearted NY that she calls, in the DVD's audio commentary, "a small town."

And of course, Meg and Tom do end up together since it was fated and their souls are linked. Hanks finds out about the internet relationship before Ryan, and has to work hard to make the romance happen since it would be quite a shock to Ryan when her beloved NY152 walks up and is, in fact, the big bad wolf. Hanks uses his wiles to make Ryan fall in love with his physical self as well, which Ryan treats as emotional torture. When Hanks finally reveals himself, Ryan feels as though she has been put into a fantasy story where she gets not one man of her dreams, but two - of course she's been in a fantasy story the whole time, and just never realized. Nevermind, says the movie and Hanks, that he put her out of business and ruined her existence. They love each other! Right? And he's got money, so...

Ephron's impeccable structure and quiet form put Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks at the front of the picture, and that is why people like it. To the untrained eye, Ephron is not as present as the stars. Yet the story is saying something significantly more than "love is grand," and the themes that surface, though hypocritical, are of interest. You've Got Mail is proof that seeing a fun romantic comedy doesn't have to be a brainless experience, and that the best directors don't always work in the showy genres of drama or art-film. It is also evidence of a cultural attitude about love and thought that will serve as a historic artifact of pre-9/11 romanticism.