Review #4

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY...

Released:1989

Director: Rob Reiner

Starring: Meg Ryan & Billy Crystal

Grade: B+

 

One of my favorite icebreakers is to ask people to name a movie they are embarrassed they’ve never seen. My go to answer is Fight Club, but When Harry Met Sally was a close second. When I spotted it at my local library on Friday, I decided it might be time to finally cross it off the never-seen list.

I wasn’t totally ignorant of the movie’s plot. I’ve seen the infamous orgasm-diner scene on various countdown shows and I’ve caught a few minutes while flipping through channels on TV. I went in with mostly fresh eyes, however, curious to see if the film would live up to its beloved reputation. The central question of the film is whether or not men and women can be friends without sex getting in the way. My question was whether the film would feel like a timeless love story or a dated flashback.

The final verdict is a little bit of both. As I was watching, I kept comparing the film to more contemporary portrayals of men, women, friendship and love. How I Met Your Mother and Friends deal with similar issues in a more recent era (albeit in sitcom form). What struck me is how much older the characters in When Harry Met Sally seem. Maybe it’s just the big hair and high-waisted jeans, but Harry, Sally and their friends seem to have a certain air of maturity that similarly aged characters on more modern shows don’t. It’s interesting to see how the world has changed in the past twenty years and how we portray people in their post-college, pre-marriage years. For all of their relationship dramas, Harry and Sally are depicted as fully-fledged adults with stable jobs and fantastic apartments. I feel like Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Ted, Robin and Marshall have a stronger connection to their youth, a sort of arrested-development made fashionable most recently by Judd Apatow.

After two random-meetings, Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) finally become friends as they recover from rough breakups. There’s a real sense of two lonely people finding each other at the right time. Theirs is a friendship based on mutual-vulnerability tinged with nostalgia. Having been hurt by love, it’s understandable that Harry and Sally are looking for something else: a relationship without the risk of a breakup, someone you can call up in the middle of the night just to watch the last five minutes of Casablanca together. (On a side note, I love when people in movies talk about other movies. A lot of my friendships are based on our shared love of pop culture topics and it’s nice to see that represented on film.)

Ryan and Crystal have an easy sort of camaraderie and you get the feeling they had a great time goofing off between takes. I give Rob Reiner credit for creating a relaxed set, something that seems to be a signature of his films. (Wouldn’t you have loved to hang out on the set on The Princess Bride?) Even though Harry claims to have a dark side, the movie keeps the conflict light and the emotional turmoil fairly mellow. It’s almost too determined to keep things happy and frothy, and I wish the stakes felt a little higher. Harry and Sally's one big yelling match ends with an apology almost before it really begins.

Meg Ryan is charming in a wide-eyed kind of way. Sally has to be high-maintenance but still likable, and Ryan does a good job of toeing the line between endearing and annoying. Billy Crystal has a wonderful dry wit and easy charm that works well against Ryan’s buzzing energy.

It’s a slow, easy movie about anxious people with relatively trivial problems and I think there are two reasons it’s remembered so fondly. The first is the soundtrack. This was probably the biggest surprise to me as a first time viewer. The soundtrack is composed entirely of big band standards crooned by Harry Connick Jr. The use of these timeless songs was a brilliantly far-thinking choice that saves the movie from feeling too dated. Even if the shoulder pads ground the characters firmly in the late 1980s, the music connects Harry and Sally’s love story to something more classic. “It Had To Be You” is the thread that connects this one particular romance to romance in general, and it helps tie together the central plot with the interspersed interviews of other couples. The scope of the film is simultaneously small and large. Harry and Sally are just one couple with a love story in a world full of couples with love stories. The music gives a universal, ageless quality to the film.

The other reason I think the movie is remembered so fondly is because it really sticks the landing. I was taken aback by how much the last scene hit me in the gut. A playwriting teacher told me that in order to make something relatable, it needs to be specific. It’s a lesson Nora Ephron clearly took to heart in Harry’s final speech. It’s the details of getting cold when it’s 71 degrees and that little crinkle above her nose that makes their relationship feel real. It’s also a huge credit to Billy Crystal that he’s able to deliver a line like “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible” with just the right amount of edge to keep it from becoming pure schmaltz.

Reality factor: The movie takes it’s time (twelve years and three months) to build Harry and Sally’s relationship and it’s stronger for it. The specifics of each character feel real- maybe that’s because Harry was influenced by Rob Reiner and Sally by Nora Ephron (who orders in the same way Sally does). [4 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: Bruno Kirby (as Carrie Fisher’s love interest) is no Han Solo. Billy Crystal has a nice smile, but thank goodness he’s funny.  [1 out of 5]

Aww factor: Never have neuroses been so charming. Major credit to everyone involved for making a New-Years-Eve-love-confession feel earned and genuine.
[3 out of 5]