When Harry Met Sally

One of the first film papers I ever wrote was about When Harry Met Sally. I remember distinctly that I wrote about the fact that Harry and Sally were the ying and yang of each othere, perfect opposites that fit together perfectly – their names even show it. Harry Burns is dark and brooding, and Sally Albright is bright and chipper – together they complete each other’s outlook on life.

When Harry Met Sally is a perfect commentary on male/female relationships and as I grow older this becomes ever more true. Women are from Venus, men are from Mars and Ephron & Reiner figured out how to capture this long before the mass population put it into pop culture. Harry & Sally are the perfect couple, the only problem is that like as in the case with more perfect couples – they’re the last ones to realize it.

I consider this a New Year’s movie because several of the key scenes take place on New Year’s Ever, so if you get the chance please check this out this New Year.





Harry Burns: And was it worth it? The sacrifice for a friend you don't even keep in touch with?
Sally Albright: Harry, you might not believe this, but I never considered not sleeping with you a sacrifice.

When Harry Met Sally

Harry and Sally's Love Story
Originally uploaded by pineappleupsidedown

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: When Harry Met Sally = incredible. I could watch this movie any time and find it just as funny as I did the first time I watched it, that is part of why it is so good. This film is incredibly well crafted and because of this it stands the test of time; the film may be set in the 1980’s but it hasn’t aged a day.

I miss Meg Ryan. It’s been far too long since she’s been in a comedy and I want to see her on screen again. Sally Albright might be her trademark role & I have that forever, but I do want to see her onscreen, in good work again. If Sandra Bullock can score an Oscar this year for The Blindside then Meg had a shot at being recognized for her talent someday too.

Harry Burns: Had my dream again where I'm making love, and the Olympic judges are watching. I'd nailed the compulsories, so this is it, the finals. I got a 9.8 from the Canadians, a perfect 10 from the Americans, and my mother, disguised as an East German judge, gave me a 5.6. Must have been the dismount.

When Harry Met Sally

If all romantic comedies were as good as When Harry Met Sally I would not hold the disdain for the genre as I do. However, very few movies – romantic comedy or not – can grasp the level of quality and comedy that When Harry Met Sally has.

Harry Burns and Sally Albright meet right after college when Sally’s friend Amanda gets Sally to agree to let her boyfriend Harry drive to New York with Sally. The two dislike each other because Harry has a very dark view of life that Sally cannot appreciate and Harry cannot understand the rose colored view that Sally has. A few years later the two meet again on a flight and butt heads when Harry again reminds Sally of his initial theory that women and men can’t be friends, he also announces to a very shocked Sally that he is about to be married. They to part ways after departing the plane and don’t meet again until a few years later when Harry is getting divorced and Sally had just broken up with her long term boyfriend. This time Harry and Sally recognize the unique spirit in each other and forge a strong friendship that has all of their friends pushing for the two of them to get together, but Harry and Sally insist that they are the only members of the opposite sex that do not see each other in a sexual way. This of course is eventually what changes, altering their relationship and their lives forever.

The star of this movie for me is the writing of Nora Ephron. These characters so perfectly represent a natural character arch for their genders that you can believe they’ve aged eleven years in the two hour time span that the movie takes place in. I know that When Harry Met Sally was a partnership between the lead actors, Rob Reiner and Ephron but her track record proves that she again and again writes great films that people want to see. Her dialogue is simply so good that you will be quoting lines like “you made a woman meow” for years to come.

As a testimony of Ephron’s great writing is the scene at the deli in this movie. Even if you haven’t seen When Harry Met Sally you have seen the clip somewhere of Sally performing a fake orgasm for Harry at lunch, followed by an older woman telling the waiter “I’ll have what she’s having”.

I also adore the faux documentary sections that are used as a device between sections of the film. In these documentary clips an old couple sits and tells their love story – the story of how they met and got married. What is most fun about these clips is that they are real love stories – just not told by the actual couple. Evidently, Reiner and Ephron wanted to have the stories told by the real couples but as couples do they just couldn’t be concise or stay on topic, and so they decided to take the stories but get actors to tell them. The device is charming and one of the funniest things about the movie.

This is one of my favorite movies and it brought me into awareness that you can have an “odd” pairing of actors, or crazy situations and as long as you have the right actors in the part and the right people behind the scenes it will all work. This movie is timeless because the people making it took every opportunity to take the effort and craft When Harry Met Sally into a complete and perfect movie.

Director: Rob Reiner
Writer: Nora Ephron
Harry Burns: Billy Crystal
Sally Albright: Meg Ryan
Marie: Carrie Fisher
Jess: Bruno Kirby

Marie: All I'm saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don't get him first, somebody else will, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband.

The Holiday

Hday_1280x1024_01
Originally uploaded by ns520za

If you know that I loathe most romantic comedies and holiday films you would be surprised to find out that I adore The Holiday. In fact, I am a little shocked that I like The Holiday as much as I do. However, I do blame this on another of my likes and dislikes – I love movies about movies and The Holiday has a main character that edits trailers, one character that is a film composer and another character that was a screenwriter in the golden age of Hollywood.

At its core The Holiday is a film about Iris and Amanda. It’s Christmas time and Iris, a columnist from England is heartbroken to discover Jasper the man that has been leading her on for two years is engaged to one of her coworkers and didn’t even have the decency to tell her before making the announcement. In the states Amanda makes movie trailers and has just dumped her boyfriend Ethan for cheating on her with his secretary. Both women are devastated and don’t want to stay home for the holidays; through chance Amanda finds that Iris has listed her home on a home exchange website and the women decided to switch houses for the holiday. Iris heads to Hollywood and meets Miles a film composer who seems to have her luck in love, and Arthur who is Amanda’s elderly neighbor and a prolific screenwriter from a Hollywood era long gone. In England Amanda meets Graham, Amanda’s brother and the two hit it off only for Amanda to discover that he is a widower with two small daughters. Both women begin complicated relationships with the men – Amanda’s romantic and Iris’s at first purely friendship with both men, at first.

I do have to say that I have nothing against the characters in England but the storyline of Iris, Miles and Arthur are my favorite part of the movie. Not only do I love the old Hollywood influence in the story but I find Iris to be the character that I can empathize with the most. I also adore Kate Winslet and Jack Black together which I didn’t think was possible. It’s an odd pairing but it’s kind of like Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, once you see Billy Crystal in the role you can’t imagine anyone else playing that – I think Jack Black did that in The Holiday. I think Kate Winslet needs to be in more movies. I love watching her act.

I really think that The Holiday is just a really good film, not just a holiday film. It is able to transcend it’s categorization because it uses the time of the year as a catalyst, not as an overarching theme by which the movie is driven.

Director & Writer: Nancy Meyers
Amanda: Cameron Diaz
Iris: Kate Winslet
Graham: Jude Law
Miles: Jack Black
Arthur Abbott: Eli Wallach
Ethan: Edward Burns
Jasper: Rufus Sewell
Maggie: Shannyn Sossamon

Arthur Abbott: Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.
Iris: You're so right. You're supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god's sake! Arthur, I've been going to a therapist for three years, and she's never explained things to me that well. That was brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.