On her 29th birthday, magazine editor Samantha is living in an apartment in the Tribeca section of Manhattan. Her friend and co-worker Jen thinks she needs a man, and as one step in the process of finding someone for Samantha, she throws a party for her. The possible choices include Tony The Tiger (who is not grrreat) and Samantha's ex Brian, who wants to get back together. Brian sings her a song because he thinks he has the talent to make music a career. He is wrong.
Jonathan, whose nickname is Jack, lives next door and is disturbed by the party. He was a white-collar worker who now waits tables, with Gino, where his friends still eat. While they talk about their big deals, Jack's friends seem to think he is less of a person. Jack's dream is to start a newspaper called The Tribeca Times, but he is struggling to find advertisers and stories to attract readers. His sister Hilary, who is married with a child, thinks Jack needs a woman.
Jack decides to join a dating service and do a story about it. Samantha just happens to join the same service. They both meet someone ideal through email. Meanwhile, they hate each other--for example, Samantha's big dog messes up Jack's New York Times, they can't stand each other's music (I don't like any of the music either of them do, by the way). The email friends enjoy communicating about their lives, and especially about the jerk living next door.
Until they decide to meet, the two email friends endure a series of loser dates.
The ending is quite entertaining, resulting from coincidences and miscommunication.
This movie is Yahoo's answer to "You've Got Mail", which in my opinion was a superior movie. While I thought Meg Ryan was adorable in her movie, I couldn't stand Samantha and didn't care about seeing her happy. I thought I would like Jack, but he was no Tom Hanks. Both characters ended up being somewhat more pleasant as the movie progressed.
What I really liked were the quirky characters. Four of the loser dates were among the best of these: For Samantha, a magician (who was quite good), and Harry, who brought his therapist. For Jack, there was the anti-Semitic vegetarian who could only speak one word at a time, and the woman in the limo who thought she was supposed to pay. Other standout characters: the fortune-teller Jack visited, the woman at the dating service who worked with Samantha, and the man at the dating service who worked with Jack (I do know his name was George).
I'm not saying this was a bad movie. I don't recall any specific weaknesses. I just know that except for the ending, I wasn't that happy.
