When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Directed by Rob Reiner
Written by Nora Ephron
Starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby
Release Date July 14th, 1989
Published September 20th, 2017
The classic on this week’s Everyone is a Critic podcast is When Harry Met Sally, director Rob Reiner’s 1989 romantic comedy that arguably set the template for every romantic comedy that came after it. Reiner, whose The Princess Bride turns 30 this weekend and inspired our podcast to focus on Reiner’s work, directed When Harry Met Sally from a script by Nora Ephron who would go on to take the mantel of the leading voice in romantic comedies in Hollywood throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s.
The template is thus, two people who seem ill-suited for each other get repeatedly thrust together by fate before sleeping together, montage together and then break up, montage, and finally have a romantic reunion. These movies could write themselves after a while but in fairness to Reiner, when he conceived of When Harry Met Sally, the template wasn’t quite so set in stone. In fact, in pairing the comic Billy Crystal with the actress Meg Ryan, Reiner found something that still feels very fresh in their unusual chemistry.
Harry (Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) met at the University of Chicago in 1978. Sally happened to be headed to New York to take a job as a journalist and Harry headed the same way for work offered to help pay for the trip and share the driving. They immediately don’t get along as Harry launches into his off-putting diatribe about how men and women can’t be friends because sex always gets in the way. Sally, put off by Harry’s blunt talk about how all men want to sleep with her, goes quiet and the two part ways seemingly to never see each other again.
Five years later, on a plane, Harry and Sally reconnect. Sally is in a new relationship while Harry has an even bigger surprise, he’s getting married. That doesn’t stop him from flirting with Sally and even asking her to dinner when they get to their destination. She says no and once again they part. Finally, we cut to another five years later, both Sally and Harry are fresh out of relationships with Harry still stinging from a recent divorce. In a speech that remains remarkable to this day, Harry lays out the scene of the breakup to his pal played by Bruno Kirby. The brutal honesty and dark humor of the story is magnificent, and Crystal demonstrates the kind of acting chops that few other movies have ever allowed him to show. Crystal is a consummate performer and given a brilliant monologue to deliver he becomes a magnetic presence.
Find my full length review in the Geeks Community at Vocal.
