It's amazing how a film can sustain a theme of two people not destined to meet until its final scenes. French director Claude Lelouch used to help this mixture go down with a tablespoonful of sugar, but this sweet and funny movie just about makes it on its own - aided by romantic songs from such unlikely sources as Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Durante. And it has Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Especially Ryan, at her most appealing as a journalist about to marry snuffly suitor Bill Pullman (also very good) - until, on the car radio, she hears Hanks pouring out his heart (to the agony aunt his young son has rung) over the death of his beloved wife 18 months before. Like women all over America, Ryan is hooked. So will they ever meet? It doesn't seem like it, but director/co-writer Nora Ephron knows she can't string us along this far without a happy ending. Watch this one for a smile and a furtive tear, rather than a good cry.

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