For those who haven’t seen an ABC Family rerun of You’ve Got Mail, say hello to Nora Ephron’s rom-com classic, which delights in Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks falling in love via instant message. Since they share no personal details with one another—she’s Shopgirl, he’s NY152—they unknowingly meet in person as enemies. His Barnes and Noble stand-in threatens to put her children’s bookstore out of business. They have no idea that they’re actually soulmates. What a dilemma!

Almost ahead of its time, You’ve Got Mail pokes at the existential implications of online and offline personas. The film turns 18 this year, and by this point, we’re used to filtering love and loneliness through the internet. When Ryan says she wandered into the over-30 chat-room as “a joke,” we’re already primed to suspect it was not a joke. We’ve seen Her. But You’ve Got Mail is also the product of a simpler time. As tunes like “Splish Splash” and “Rockin’ Robin” roll on the soundtrack, the film ditches any potential melancholy to force its audience into compliant, adorable fun.

With its doilies and mid-email finger waggles, You’ve Got Mail may be the most aggressively twee film of all time. At the eye of the storm is peak-era Ryan, playing children’s bookstore owner Kathleen Kelly. She bops about in Ann Taylor turtlenecks while rereading Pride and Prejudice ad infinitum (she loves that Jane Austen loves words like “thither”). She wistfully reminisces about “twirling,” a beloved childhood pastime. “I was thinking about [Joni Mitchell] tonight as I was decorating my Christmas tree,” she types to Joe while disentangling a string of “twinkle lights” (her words). Of course, Christmas is pivotal in the world of You’ve Got Mail—its culturally homogenous Upper West Side serves up a feature-length advertisement for the color beige, save for the pointed casting of Dave Chappelle as Joe’s best friend. This is a fantasy, pop-up book version of New York, and You’ve Got Mail demands that you thoughtlessly enjoy it. You can practically feel the film clamp open your eyes to Joe and Kathleen’s cutesy chemistry, drowning out all else. If that’s not your cup of tea, run far away.

None of this will prepare you for Joe’s horrifying third act antics (spoilers ahead, but you have had 18 years to watch this). After Joe and Kathleen complete their stress-free breakups (with Parker Posey and Greg Kinnear, both playing cardboard cutouts), Joe decides his best course of action would be to emotionally manipulate Kathleen through a fabricated love triangle. When Kathleen realizes he has been playing double duty as pen pal and IRL confidante, the music swells, and she gushes, “I hoped it was you!” What? Despite myself, my eyes watered, and I realized that You’ve Got Mail had destroyed me. Regardless of how you feel about saccharine cultural products, it is undeniable that this film knows how to orchestrate its desired emotional response. Sentimentality wins. Ew.