(Nora Ephron, US 1998, 119 min., 35mm)
Nora Ephron’s updating of The Shop Around the Corner takes us into the early days of e-mail and message boards. Instead of writing anonymous letters to each other through the mail, small business comes into conflict with corporate culture via AOL chat rooms. Kathleen (Meg Ryan) owns a children’s bookstore in Manhattan that she inherited from her mother. She has been communicating online with a user who calls himself only NY152 and building a relationship with him, unaware that that user is Joe Fox (Tom Hanks), whose family owns a bookstore chain that is looking to push Kathleen out. As the final holiday season winds down for Kathleen and her bookstore, she begins to wonder whether her online relationship can survive the revelation of their identities.
35mm print from Warner Bros. via HFC.