bouquets of sharpened pencils

i love you've got mail. It is one of that rare breed of diverting popcorn films, it manages to leave the smile on your face for longer than just the fleeting, ephemeral pleasure of screen time. every time i see the movie, all i can do is smile and smile and smile for hours later, because i think the movie succeeds on many levels. on the superficial level it is a great chickflick that combines excellent characters with great casting, meg ryan is of course perfect as the cute as pie spring fresh kathleen kelly 'save the children' bookshop owner and tom hanks is superb as the smarmy business man whose sarcasm drips onto the keyboard and whose business policy was taken from the godfather, but it is also a love letter to new york city (and who doesn't love NYC?), a love letter to reading and books, a love letter to family and finally a love letter to, well, letters, as it were.

who isn't nostalgic, really, for the time when letters was the medium through which news, messages, thoughts and feelings were receives and sent. And although the film might seem to be preoccupied with technology and the internet it is actually more interested with 'snail mail'. the film manages to maintain an air of frippery whilst also tackling all of these things, and it never becomes the hard-hitting comedy that Juno or little miss sunshine was, but it is definitely one of the best romcoms ever to have been made.

one of my most favourite parts of the movie, which include kathleen's bookstore and knowledge of children's literature, is kathleen's apartment. it is a huge west side brownstone that in reality she probably couldn't afford, not considering her small income, but it is beautiful, packed with french provincial decorating, flea market finds, haphazardly strewn books, daisies (her favourite flower) and delicate china. It is a beautifully designed apartment, and i only wish i could have found more pictures to ilustrate this point. It is all very interestingly laid out, too, but i can't really describe it. The panning at the beginning of the film shows it all better than i ever could. I wish i could have an apartment like that, filled with all my books and things.

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