‘You’Ve Got Mail’ Doesn’T Quite Deliver

Halfway through “You’ve Got Mail,” I developed a powerful need for a brownie. Possibly one with mocha frosting.

Not that food has anything to do with “You’ve Got Mail” (although, in an unprecedented breakthrough, rail-thin Meg Ryan does actually hold onto a sandwich; she doesn’t eat it, of course, but she touches it for quite a while). On the other hand, my craving does have something to do with the movie, because if the film had a more powerful hold on our attention, we wouldn’t be thinking about our snacking futures.

No matter what, “You’ve Got Mail” has two of the most likable movie stars around, Ryan and Tom Hanks. Even if, like me, you’re no fan of their previous teamings (“Joe vs. the Volcano,” “Sleepless in Seattle”), these are two people you want to see together.

Both are immediately sympathetic, both seem intelligent and kind, and both balance niceness with a sense that they’re holding back a little streak of viciousness.

Ryan has reason to feel vicious in “You’ve Got Mail.” She’s the owner of the Shop Around the Corner, a children’s bookstore founded by her mother. The life of her store is threatened by Hanks, whose Barnes & Noble-like megastore plays Big Bad Wolf to the Shop’s Little Red Riding Hood.

Meanwhile, the two have unknowingly struck up an e-mail relationship that’s destined to get prickly when they finally meet (“You’ve Got Mail” is a remake of “The Shop Around the Corner,” which used snail mail to get across the same romantic conceit).

It all feels too low-key and safe.

Couldn’t they have thrown the story a curve by, for instance, switching the gender roles and making Ryan the rapacious tycoon? Couldn’t they have given Greg Kinnear and Parker Posey something to do besides act as hurdles on Hanks and Ryan’s steeplechase of love? Couldn’t someone tell Hollywood that it doesn’t work to make songs on the soundtrack do all the emotional heavy lifting?

Co-writer/director Nora Ephron obviously loves the idea of Ryan’s tiny, cozy store, where the carefully arranged window displays usher you into a magical world (in a like-minded New Yorker piece earlier this year, Ephron enthused about her neighborhood deli).

Ephron does a terrific job of hooking us into the idea that there’s a reason to save little, customer-oriented bookstores from the jaws of Mr. Barnes and Mr. Noble. So it’s a shock when “You’ve Got Mail” abandons the little guy theme after about 90 minutes.

Ephron makes us care so much about the bookstore battle theme that it’s disappointing to realize that the movie doesn’t care about it at all. That it’s just an excuse to usher us into the romance. That it’s just window dressing.

“YOU’VE GOT MAIL” Locations: Lincoln Heights, Newport, Spokane Valley Mall, Post Falls, Showboat Credits: Directed by Nora Ephron, starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan Running time: 2:00 Rating: PG