When Billy Met Meg

Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) has just graduated from the University of Chicago and is driving to New York to start her career as a journalist. Her friend Amanda (Michelle Nicastro) arranges for her boyfriend, Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) to share the driving, as he is moving to New York as well. But When Harry Met Sally (1989), they find that they have entirely different viewpoints on life.

TCM Big Screen Classics featured this excellent film, now 30 years old. While When Harry Met Sally is a comedy, it is also a serious discussion of the relationships between men and women. Certainly, Sally is a bit obsessive (everything in her menu order must be "on the side"), while Harry is sexually casual, to the point of promiscuity. But what we begin to discover, as Harry and Sally reconnect, is that they are good for one another, each filling a void in their mutual lives.

Meg Ryan brings a whimsy to Sally that makes her character charming. In lesser hands, Sally could become annoying to the point of frustration, but Ms. Ryan never crosses that line. Certainly, you shake your head when she begins ordering her food, but her point - that it's always better if you have your meal exactly as YOU want it - cannot be argued. It was Ms. Ryan's idea that Sally fake an orgasm in that now famous scene (TCM article), and Mr. Reiner's to put his mother, Estelle Reiner, into the scene to utter the most famous line in the film "I'll have what she's having." (#33 on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Quotes)

The same can be said about Billy Crystal's Harry - Mr. Crystal is able to make him interesting and engaging. Harry's attitudes towards women are vaguely medieval - "no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her," but because of his chemistry with Ms. Ryan and his sympathetic portrayal, you end up liking Harry (though there are times, you want to shake him!)

Carrie Fisher (Marie), Sally's best friend, is amazing as a woman who seems to fall for the wrong man constantly. Involved in a clandestine relationship with a married man, she is urged to break off the affair, but Marie keeps hoping that he will leave his wife, as he has long promised. Only when she finally meets Harry's best friend, Jess (Bruno Kirby), does she find a soul mate and long-term partner. Her plea to Jess "Tell me I'll never have to be out there again" resonates with anyone who's ever had to deal with the dating scene.

The only Oscar nomination that When Harry Met Sally received was Nora Ephron for Original Screenplay (she won the BAFTA award), and it's not surprising. Ms. Ephron has crafted a gloriously expressive script that merges comedy and drama in an effective and moving way.  Though quotes abound from the script (EW.com, Tribeca News, Parade), the film is not a series of one-liners. It's a unique look at romantic love, and at the problems inherent in finding the one person who is right for you.  As Marie so aptly puts it: "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 New York Times review was not especially enthusiastic, but a more recent Vanity Fair article points up the timelessness of the story.  If you've never seen When Harry Met Sally, treat yourself and give it a viewing. In the meantime, here's a trailer to whet your appetite: