The Heart of the Film

Chapter 32

You’ve Got Mail

Let’s move beyond the one scene covering several tasks and walk through a full-length movie using the model we’ve been working on. All four elements (Meet, Crack, Why You?, Obstacle) are necessary, but sometimes they come in different orders. Let’s look at:

You’ve Got Mail (1998, written by Nora and Delia Ephron).

The Cute Meet

Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) is on an afternoon outing with two kids. Annabelle, 8 and Matt, 4. After tiring of the street fair, they drag Joe into the children’s book store owned by Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan). She assumes these are his kids, but he introduces them (correctly) as his aunt and his brother. Pretty cute. His father and grandfather remarried much younger women and fathered these two. Joe manages ...