Not only are romantic comedies a dime and a dozen, but they're insidiously cheap to make and are guaranteed to hit a certain plateau of ticket sales. This is based on the fact that couples are always looking for the movie part of their weekend "dinner and a movie" to be familiar territory and accessible to both parties without requiring a lot of cerebral aptitude. It hasn't always been that way though. Up until movies like Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... in the late 1980's, there hadn't been a lot of output from the genre. A few John Hughes offerings would be about as close as Hollywood would get to the "Will-They-Or-Won't-They-Get-Together" field.
When Harry Met Sally... was written by Nora Ephron, and it remains by far her best script to date. Starring Billy Crystal as Harry Burns and Meg Ryan as Sally Albright, Ephron seems to either have channelled the lead actors' mannerisms in a perfect coup de grace or Crystal and Ryan are far better than they've ever gotten credit for. Either way, the screenplay is ripe with repartee and the performers are at the top of their game.
The premise is that Harry and Sally first meet in 1977 while sharing a car ride to New York, begin a debate about the nature of male/female relationships, and then part ways, only to keep bumping into each other over the next twenty years. The crux of their arguments center on whether or not men and women can strictly be friends in a platonic sense or if biological design means they are but pawns in the mating game. Clearly, the two care about each other, but do they love each other? Fortunately, there are smart subplot interludes in the form of Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby as the star-crossed best friends who are much more inclined to act on their impulses than the hesitant Harry and Sally.
The film is interspersed with sweet interviews of couples who tell their own tales of love triumphing over all. While the anecdotes are staged, they feel real and are a nice touch to a movie that asks its audience to identify with its lead characters. As Harry, Crystal is ever-pessimistic but also an evidently good man beneath his abrasive personality. He finds the right tone of voice as he plunges through monologues that are recited perhaps not only from experience, but from memory... and repetition. Ryan is her usual pixie self as Sally, but the role seems underwritten during parts when she picks fights with Harry at the times when she loves him the most.
Directed by Rob Reiner, When Harry Met Sally... will mean something different to each person who watches it. Thanks to the set-up of some of the topics of conversation in the movie, it opens the door to subject matter about love, life, dreams and friendship. And although it falters from time to time, it is always well-intentioned and inoffensive, has some pretty good laughs, and finds a way to portray the bridged gap between the sexes without actually taking sides.
On a side note, I noticed When Harry Met Sally... is rated R, despite no nudity, violence, drug use or even language other than the "F" word a total of two times. Meg Ryan's infamous restaurant scene aside, this movie is usually broadcast complete and as is on TV all the time. The R rating doesn't make any sense to me.
