When Harry Met Sally… asks whether a man and a woman can be friends without sex getting in the way. Rob Reiner directed it. Nora Ephron wrote it. It runs 96 minutes and it spends twelve years testing Harry Burns on his own question.
Trailer, via Shout! Studios.
Harry Burns and the Drive to New York
The film starts in 1977. Harry and Sally Albright graduate from the University of Chicago and share a drive to New York City. Harry is dating Sally’s friend Amanda Reese. Sally is heading to journalism school; Harry has a job waiting.
On the road, Harry lays out his position: men and women cannot be friends because “the sex part gets in the way.” Sally disagrees. At a diner he tells her she is very attractive, and she accuses him of making a pass. They part in New York, never planning to meet again.
Two More Encounters, Five Years Apart
In 1982 they end up on the same flight. Sally is dating Harry’s neighbor Joe. Harry is engaged to a lawyer named Helen. Sally finds the engagement uncharacteristically optimistic of him. Harry suggests friendship, then has to qualify his old rule. They leave it there.
In 1987 they run into each other at a bookstore. Sally and Joe have broken up. Helen has left Harry for another man. They agree to try friendship — late-night phone calls, dinners, long talks about their love lives. At a New Year’s Eve party they share an awkward midnight kiss.
Marie and Jess Fall for Each Other
Harry and Sally set each other up with their best friends, Marie and Jess. On the double date, neither Marie nor Jess is attracted to the person they were matched with. They fall for each other instead.
Carrie Fisher plays Marie. Bruno Kirby plays Jess. Billy Crystal plays Harry and Meg Ryan plays Sally. Steven Ford is Joe, Lisa Jane Persky is Alice, Michelle Nicastro is Amanda. Harley Jane Kozak is Helen.
The Question in the Tagline
The tagline puts it plainly: “Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning?” The film has one answer for the drive to New York and another for the years after.
Ephron built the structure, and much of the dialogue comes from the real-life friendship between Reiner and Crystal. The idea started when Reiner and Penny Marshall divorced. An interview Ephron did with Reiner gave her the basis for Harry; Sally came from Ephron and some of her friends. Crystal joined and added his own material.
Harry Connick Jr. and the Standards
The soundtrack is standards from Harry Connick Jr., with a big band and orchestra arranged by Marc Shaiman. Connick won his first Grammy for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance for the work.
Columbia Pictures opened When Harry Met Sally… in selected cities first, let word of mouth build, then widened distribution. It grossed $92.8 million in North America. Ephron won the BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for the Academy Award, the WGA Award and a Golden Globe. The American Film Institute ranks it 23rd on its 100 Years… 100 Laughs list.
What the Twelve Years Buy
Here is the case for the film. The twelve-year span is not decoration. It lets Harry change his mind without announcing it, and it lets Sally watch him do it. The double date is the sharpest piece of writing in the picture: two people set up as romantic options for Harry and Sally instead choose each other, and the film does not stop to explain what that means.
The case against is the back half. Once Harry and Sally stop being a question, the film leans on the same argument it already settled. The midnight kiss is meant to unsettle them. It mostly restates the premise.
Ranked against the romantic comedies that came before it, When Harry Met Sally… earns its place. The AFI ranking at 23rd is fair, not generous. The Ephron BAFTA is the right trophy for the right job.
The Score
A few things to weigh:
- Ephron’s structure, which holds twelve years without a narrator’s crutch.
- Crystal and Ryan, who make bickering sound like affection.
- Fisher and Kirby, who steal the double date outright.
- The tagline, which asks the only question the film ever needed.
It is a good film with a soft ending, and the good parts outlast the soft one. 7.6 of 10.
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