While Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks appear to be genuinely nice people, this film is nothing but a disguised attempt to make sexism and multi-national corporations look good.
Meg Ryan owns a small store that gets put out of business by a chain book store with severely uneducated clerks who earn very little money. And then she gets her coffee at Starbucks. Yeah right! How dumb is Ryan's character anyway? While she enjoys her coffee she's helping put out of business all the local mom and pop coffee shops.
Tom Hanks' character, while becoming more compassionate in his personal approach, makes no change whatsoever in his business practices. Ryan's character teaches him to be kinder, but that's all. And she decides to be with him, even though he'll go on to put other small stores out of business just like her's. What will happen to their happily ever after ending when she sees him do this to another person, except this time he does it with more "compassion?" Because Hanks' character didn't truly change (he would have had to denounce his family's business practices), the message is clear: Give in, submit to big business.
Even the very set-up of this film is sexist. Reverse the roles in this film. Suppose Hanks was Ryan and vice versa. What would audiences think of a man who fell in love with the woman who put him out of business? They wouldn't watch it, that's what. He'd be a wuss, absolutely whipped. But because it's a woman being screwed, it's ok. (Btw, I'm a man and I saw this sexism from the get go.)
This film, in the simplest terms, is a thinly disguised sexist pro big business fairy tale that's supposed to make us feel better about our losing a way of life -- the "shop around the corner" where everyone knows your name, knows the products and isn't out to screw the small guy.
Meg Ryan owns a small store that gets put out of business by a chain book store with severely uneducated clerks who earn very little money. And then she gets her coffee at Starbucks. Yeah right! How dumb is Ryan's character anyway? While she enjoys her coffee she's helping put out of business all the local mom and pop coffee shops.
Tom Hanks' character, while becoming more compassionate in his personal approach, makes no change whatsoever in his business practices. Ryan's character teaches him to be kinder, but that's all. And she decides to be with him, even though he'll go on to put other small stores out of business just like her's. What will happen to their happily ever after ending when she sees him do this to another person, except this time he does it with more "compassion?" Because Hanks' character didn't truly change (he would have had to denounce his family's business practices), the message is clear: Give in, submit to big business.
Even the very set-up of this film is sexist. Reverse the roles in this film. Suppose Hanks was Ryan and vice versa. What would audiences think of a man who fell in love with the woman who put him out of business? They wouldn't watch it, that's what. He'd be a wuss, absolutely whipped. But because it's a woman being screwed, it's ok. (Btw, I'm a man and I saw this sexism from the get go.)
This film, in the simplest terms, is a thinly disguised sexist pro big business fairy tale that's supposed to make us feel better about our losing a way of life -- the "shop around the corner" where everyone knows your name, knows the products and isn't out to screw the small guy.