The plot of my next film, 1940’s The Shop Around the Corner is suspiciously familiar. Ernst Lubitsch’s film follows two Budapest shop workers Alfred (James Stewart) and Klara (Margaret Sullavan) at Christmastime who can’t stand each other but are both enamoured with their respective pen pals. Well, wouldn’t you know it, they turn out to be each other’s pen pals and have unwittingly fallen in love. Awkward, hilarious romance ensues. Yup, turns out this was remade to enormous success in 1998 as Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail.
It sure is a sweet, smart idea and still incredibly relevant today in this age of online dating and ‘catfishing’ where scores of people fall in love with people they’ve never met and who might not even be real. It also feels really pertinent to the social media-obsessed world of ‘keyboard warriors’, people too scared to express their true feelings in public, but find they’re really able to let loose through carefully crafted messages.
You can see how simple it was to update this tale for the late ‘90s email age and there’s plenty fun to be had watching the mutual ignorance of these two, waging petty workplace battles by day, obliviously casting an amorous spell over each other in their letters by night.
It's totally obvious where this is all heading but the joy is in watching Alfred and Klara figure it out. And what better time of year for this highly irregular workplace romance to unfold than the busy Christmas shopping season?
Stewart plays to his strengths portraying Alfred as an agreeable everyman, the kind of guy who when he gets promoted to shop manager tries his best to be a hardass but simply can’t help but be compassionate. I confess I always kind of saw Jimmy Stewart as being whiny and annoying but with this film I can see what all the fuss is about. He seems like a top bloke. A bit like Tom Hanks, funnily enough.
Sullavan’s Klara is a kooky, adorable but feisty girl-next-door type, the prototype Meg Ryan. She’s fab and the dialogue crackles, with the film at its amusing best when these two are verbally sparring. It’s funny, they squabble so much I half expect one of their colleagues to shout out “Get a room!”
These two are master salespersons who can sell themselves to anyone but each other. Though yuletide is traditionally seen as a romantic, intimate time of year, as anyone who has worked in retail can attest, Christmas actually works as a big obstacle for the love affair here. As the two correspondents finally plan to meet, their plans are frustrated when the boss makes them both work late.
This really reminds me of when I first met my wife on a blind date on New Year’s Eve. I nearly missed it because I was stuck shutting up shop at a Frankie & Benny’s. It sucked but it must’ve been written in the stars as I got away just in time and love blossomed right away.
For Klara and Alfred, missing their date actually works in their favour as, being forced to work together to help the business, they grow closer and learn to understand and respect each other. They can then fall in love with the person right in front of them, not just through correspondence. Because, isn’t that the best way?
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