Well, if nobody else wants to say anything, I’ve just watched it myself - I would have watched it sooner but I’ve had a whole lot of catching up to do on stuff that was on over the festive period so a film I have on DVD was understandably less urgent.
First off, it’s still great. The thing that struck me is, I get something fresh out of it every time I see it. The characters, the concept and everything about it - this is the benchmark that all romantic comedies aspire to. And almost all of them fall short of the mark by a long way. Hardly surprising because this film is just too brilliant.
The characters of Harry and Sally are great - they are both as quirky as each other. Nobody else would put up with them for an instant in real life of course! But then there’s Jess and Marie, who support them admirably, and even steal many scenes. Indeed, most of the best scenes in the film include these two characters as well as the two leads. I refer of course to the four of them around the restaurant table, Harry and Sally trying to set each other up with Jess and Marie, but Jess and Marie suddenly clicking with each other! (Like I said, nobody else could really put up with Harry and Sally in real life!) Not forgetting the argument over the wagon wheel coffee table. Then there’s the double phone call the morning after Harry and Sally finally spend the night together, beautifully timed on all counts, and when Harry and Sally finally fall out at Jess & Marie’s wedding, they emerge into the the hall to find themselves being toasted as the people who got the couple together, however unintentionally! It’s loaded with memorable scenes.
Of course, talking about scenes, we cannot overlook THAT scene - where Meg Ryan as Sally just . . . well, you know. Shouts and screams in imagined ecstasy to prove the point about women faking it. I love what the bonus features say about that scene when it was being made. All the women present were smiling and laughing in amusement at the truth of it, all the men had a shudder inside at the sudden realisation that it could have happened to them at some point . . . and then after Sally has finished, the lady on the next table (the director’s mother to be precise) delivers that killer line that brings the house down.
The performances are all excellent. Billy Crystal as Harry and Meg Ryan as Sally are more than a match for each other’s quirkiness. And supporting them are Carrie Fisher as Marie and Bruno Kirby as Jess. Fisher in particular is excellent, and has plenty of moment to shine. Sometimes it’s just little things - like her index cards of the men she knows, when she finds out someone is married, she doesn’t rip the card up, she just folds a corner of it over!
The gimmick of interspersing it with actual real life stories of couples meeting up - the couples are played on screen by actors but the stories they recount are genuine (they wanted to have the real couples doing this, I can’t remember why they didn’t).
It’s hard to pick a favourite moment from this film. It’s just so perfectly done. I am not generally a fan of romantic comedies, but this will always be an exception. If I visit a friend and they’ve got it on, well, I’ll watch what they’re watching!
