“‘In life, they’re at odds. Online, they’re in love.’ But You’ve Got Mail isn’t really about online dating or the anonymity of the internet. It’s about the ways in which putting our thoughts down on paper (or screen) changes how we understand ourselves.
Instead, Ephron is interested in the way sadness runs alongside happiness, and compromise co-exists with fulfillment. Being forced to close her shop allows Kathleen to finally step outside her mother’s outsized shadow and forge her own path as a children’s book writer. But that doesn’t undo the pain of the loss either.”