When Harry Met Sally...
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| When Harry Met Sally... | |
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| Directed by | Rob Reiner |
| Written by | Nora Ephron |
| Starring | Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby |
| Produced by | Nora Ephron, Andrew Scheinman, Rob Reiner |
| Distributed by | MGM/UA Home Entertainment |
| Release date | 1989 |
| Runtime | 96 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $16,000,000 |
| IMDb page | |
| Rating‹s› | Australia:M / Canada:13+ (Quebec) / Canada:R / UK:15 / USA:R |
| for | mature topics |
When Harry Met Sally... is a 1989 film written by Nora Ephron, and directed by Rob Reiner. The romantic comedy stars Billy Crystal as Harry and Meg Ryan as Sally. The film follows the relationship of Harry and Sally from the time they meet on a shared car ride from the University of Chicago to New York, through the next 12 years or so of chance encounters leading to friendship, and more in New York City.
The film revolves around the question: "Can men and women ever truly be friends?" It popularized the term "high maintenance" as applied to individuals who are difficult to please.
In early 2004, the film was adapted for the stage in a Theatre Royal Haymarket production starring Luke Perry and Alyson Hannigan and also Molly Ringwald and Michael Landes. The 2005 UK national tour stars Gaby Roslin and Jonathan Wrather.
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Trivia
The film is best known for a scene with the two title characters having lunch at Katz's Deli in New York City's Lower East Side of Manhattan. They are arguing about a man's ability to recognize when a woman is faking an orgasm (a largely improv scene expanded upon at the last moment when originally shooting). Sally claims men cannot tell the difference, and to prove her point, she vividly (but fully clothed) demonstrates the skill as other diners watch. The scene ends with Sally casually returning to her meal as a nearby patron, played by Reiner's mother, places her order: "I'll have what she's having."
The film has helped to fuel myths at The University of Chicago that alumni from the institution had a very high inter-marriage rate, possibly due to their inability to form relationships with "other people" as shown in the movie (although Harry and Sally's scholastic affiliation is not a focus of the movie). In reality the marriage rate is significantly above average but not an outlier.
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted When Harry Met Sally... the 45th greatest comedy film of all time.
Plot
The movie begins when Harry and Sally finish college at the University of Chicago and are off to New York to begin their careers. The movie records a couple of snippets of their conversations during this trip, which center on male-female relationships. During one such conversation, Harry states this rule, "men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." In New York, they depart less than friendly.
Harry and Sally meet five years later in a New York airport, and find themselves on the same airplane. Both are in relationships. During this encounter, Harry elaborates on his previous rule:
"...They can't be friends...unless both of them are involved with other people. Then they can. This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted. That doesn't work either. Because what happens then is the person you're involved with can't understand why you need to be friends with the person you're just friends with, like it means something is missing from the relationship and wanted to go outside to get it. Then when you say, 'No, no, no, no, it's not true, nothing is missing from the relationship,' the person you're involved with then accuses you of being secretly attracted to the person you're just friends with, which you probably are - I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let's face it - which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment, which is men and women can't be friends."
Again they separate less than friendly.
Five years later, Harry and Sally meet again in a New York bookstore. By now, their earlier relationships have ended, with the other partner ending both relationships.
To this point only about 30 minutes of the movie has elapsed, the remainder of the movie covers their relationship during the next two years as they become very close friends. During this period, the two are not romantically involved with each other, but are actively dating others. Their conversations during this period explore the topics of relationships and sex.
Eventually, they have sex with each other, which becomes a barrier to their friendship. A barrier that is overcome by the end of the movie.
Theme
As mentioned above, the movie takes a comedic approach to explore different perceptions of sex in relationships (in this movie the relationships are between men and women). Whether by design or not, the movie seems to assign stereotypical sexual behaviors to Harry and Sally, as prototypical man and woman, such as: Harry seems to trivialize sex more than Sally; and Harry tends to be more promiscuous than Sally. Both Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan perform excellently to create the tensions needed to create very funny and believable comedy.
