A walk through Riverside Park, from the movie You've Got Mail,
with Somewhere Over the Rainbow as the accompanying music.
Sometimes a silly movie shows us unexpectedly beautiful places, while telling us a little more about ourselves. In You've Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly (played by Meg Ryan who is actually a better actress than the roles given to her) and Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) are communicating online using pseudonyms. Kathleen is "ShopGirl" - she owns a bookstore, and Joe is "NY152" - "the number of people who think I look like Clark Gable." Both Kathleen and Joe know each other. Joe is the big-box-bookstore owner of Fox Books who is putting Kathleen's small, neighborhood Shop Around the Corner bookstore out of business. Through their online communication, they decide to meet in a coffee shop. Joe sees her sitting and waiting in the coffee shop, and realizes the that she is the owner of Shop Around the Corner. He does not reveal to her that he is "NY152," and lets her thinks that he is simply the big-box bookstore owner patronizing the coffee shop. Later, through an online message, Joe asks Kathleen to meet him in Riverside Park, where finally tells her that he is "NY152."
What was interesting about the story was the male/female interaction. Kathleen acts like a ditzy, New-Agey woman, although she appears to be independent, and is surely a "feminist." She kind of goes with the flow of things. Joe is more ruthless, or at least he programs his actions to reach his goals, including having no remorse about removing a small bookstore to create his own. He doesn't do this because he is a mean-spirited, but because he thinks his ideas and plans are better. In fact, Kathleen has to concede, and later on accepts his job offer to run the children's department. Joe plans his second meeting with Kathleen in a similar, planned fashion, after he realizes that he knows her identity (from seeing her in the coffee shop), while she doesn't know his. Through a series of maneuvers, including arriving with his dog Brinkley at Riverside Park meeting, which his online persona talks about and Kathleen knows, Joe is the one who reveals to Kathleen what's going on. The only thing that Kathleen could say at the final revelation was, "I was hoping it was you." Rather than find a way to untangle this mystery as Joe did, all Kathleen could do was resort to wishful thinking, which would have remained so hadn't Joe intervened.
Riverside Park, 91st Street Garden
[Image source: A View on Cities]
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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