Matchmaker, Matchmaker

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

At the end of the century, as many filmmakers take a darkened view of love and togetherness, there are comforts attached to entering the world of a Nora Ephron romantic comedy--and these comforts extend beyond the knowledge that, at some point or another, Meg Ryan will appear on screen in a twin set. When Ephron pairs the actress with Tom Hanks, the viewer can rest assured that certain unsettling events will not occur: we know, for example, that our hero won't ever suffer financially (and thus won't turn to a life of bank robbery or kidnapping); our heroine won't be left, at the end of the film, with no one to dance with but her gay best friend; and, perhaps more significantly, the fated lovers won't ever turn up earnestly poring through self-help books trying to save the imperfect relationships they are in already.

In a culture teeming with Oprah, couples counselors and John Gray seminars, all telling us that love is about hard work and accepting one another's differences, Ephron refreshingly stands out as the nation's foremost advocate of mind-meld. For her, it seems, true love exists when there is a complete compatibility of intellect and tastes, the shared belief, say, that Brooks Robinson was the best third baseman ever. Intimacy isn't something built; it is something found when just the right attractive someone enters your universe, cyber or otherwise. "What's really better," says Ephron, "than two brains falling in love?"

You've Got Mail, a follow-up to her successful Hanks-Ryan vehicle Sleepless in Seattle, is Ephron's ninth effort as a screenwriter and fifth as a director. Unlike many of today's young filmmakers who grew up on movies like Shampoo, Ephron, 57, was weaned on the romantic comedies of the '40s, which serve, obviously, as her inspiration. "I think edge is a highly overrated thing," she says. "No matter how hip people think they are, they definitely want to fall in love."

A Beverly Hills native and the oldest daughter of screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron, the filmmaker attended Wellesley before entering a career as an East Coast journalist and, eventually, a famously bad marriage to Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein. It is not surprising, given Ephron's history, that her heroines typically have a passionate connection to words. Ryan was a writer in When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless, and is a bookstore owner in Ephron's new e-mail love story. "Romantic comedies are always about words," Ephron reminds. "People hate each other because of what they say or love each other because of what they say. There are many 19th century romantic comedies where a letter changes everything."

A New Yorker for many years and now married to writer Nicholas Pileggi, Ephron maintains as sunny a view of Manhattan--You've Got Mail's blindingly lit nonvirtual setting--as she does of romance. "What people don't know about New York is that it is a series of villages," she notes. "There are many things about New York that are actually like a small town in Iowa." We didn't call her a cynic.

--By Ginia Bellafante