FILM REVIEW: YOU'VE GOT MAIL. CUTE, CLEVER, BUT NOT TOO DEEP

In just four years, the grammatically incorrect baritone that announces "Welcome you've got mail" has come to represent a new force in American life, namely the America Online service, with its 14 million customers, and even the Internet itself. On Dec. 18, the deprived horde that has yet to encounter that decidedly utilitarian phrase will get its chance when Warner Brothers releases its cute, clever, but not too deep holiday flick of the same name.

You've Got Mail stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as a couple of New York Upper West-siders who are unknowingly consorting with the enemy: They adore and trust each other online (they met in an over-30 chat room and know each other only by their E-mail addresses). But offline, they're in a fight-to-the-death professionally. Hanks plays a cynical executive named Joe Fox, whose family business's new location for one of its megachain discount book outlets threatens to Wal-Martize the family-owned neighborhood children's bookstore owned by Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly. The battle seems all the more poignant because Kathleen's fondest memories of her mother, who opened the story 42 years earlier, are tied up in this small and friendly business with its somewhat overpriced books.

Co-written and directed by Nora Ephron, You've Got Mail is a throwback to her earlier Hanks/Ryan romantic comedy, Sleepless in Seattle. So as you might guess, Ephron's latest endeavor is a heart-warming love story -- a great date flick that will probably rake in plenty of box office bucks. Ryan is cute and charming; Hanks is funny and charming. And their characters' imperfect significant others (with whom they break up by the movie's end) will be familiarly entertaining to New York audiences. (Joe lives with an obnoxious, self-absorbed book publisher and Kathleen is involved with an arrogant, self-absorbed newspaper columnist). But the New York insider satire aside, what does this film really have to offer?

Not much of true substance, or even many surprises. First of all, there's no cybersex (a letdown for those of us anticipating an online encore of Ryan's performance in the diner scene from When Harry Met Sally). But that's just as well, because Kathleen's predisposition for chinos, Keds, cardigan sweater sets, and boy's pajamas -- not to mention her short, "just-out-of-bed" hairstyle and her slightly clunky gait (left over from Courage Under Fire?) is just too elfin to be sexy.

The movie hangs on one obvious but durable thread: For most of its 90 minutes, Joe and Kathleen are oblivious to the two sides of their relationship. The plot -- what there is of it outside the David vs. Goliath bookstore battle -- thickens as Joe and Kathleen's online and offline worlds slowly merge into one. But don't kid yourself. This is not a movie that explores the culture of online chat rooms or love on the Net -- or much of anything about the Net, for that matter. In fact, the more interesting romantic plot occurs offline.

The Internet is mainly a modern prop in You've Got Mail, one in which AOL and the Web are conveniently merged so that AOL -- well represented by logos and icons -- becomes the Net. E-mail is just a novel form of communication here. If it weren't for the movie's title, the characters might as well be sending each other letters (you can send more than one a day, you know). They're almost pen pals more than E-mail buddies. One fabulous ability of Internet technology is that it lets you communicate with someone else via a real-time (if typed) conversation. But the one scene that demonstrates this technology, in the form of an AOL "instant message," seems to startle Kathleen and momentarily leave her at a loss for words.

And there's no evidence that Joe or Kathleen use the Internet to communicate with anyone but each other, or that they use it for entertainment or -- most inexplicably -- to help run their businesses. Where's the Web site or the online petition, for example, when Kathleen launches her TV and print publicity blitz to save her shop from the big, bad Fox chain? Hasn't Kathleen ever heard of Amazon.com? Or of barnesandnoble.com, both of which are on AOL? Why doesn't she try selling her books -- and her extensive knowledge of them -- via an online store?

The upside of "You've Got Mail" is that even the most technologically inept won't feel out of the loop. The downside: Just as the depiction of New York City apartments in movies doesn't reflect real life, neither does the speed with which it's possible to get onto the Net in You've Got Mail. In fact, this film could be the first of a new genre: the Net fairy tale.

By Stefani Eads in New York