Not Convinced

Rating: 1/10 (3 March 2015)

Is it a well written film? Funny? With a tickle me enchanted ending? Yes, yes, and awww, yes.
Once Billy Crystal's twinkling eyes and Meg Ryan's hopeful smile fade from the screen, my elated happily-ever-after feelings felt a bit: wrong. Something was off with the story...but what? After thinking about it, I realized that Billy Crystal's character, Harry, never actually changed. In the beginning of the film Harry tries to cheat on his girlfriend with Sally. He asks Sally to sleep with him and she is disgusted at his bold lack of commitment. At the end of the film, after 12 years of friendship with him: Sally sleeps with Harry. Surprise, surprise, Harry doesn't want to commit to her. He nearly bolts out of the apartment after intimacy. He is emotionally distant. He is terrified of even having to physically be there, much less be there for her in any other sense.
Afterward, he apologizes. He wants to keep the friendship he enjoyed, and decides, after a lonely New Years Eve, he is ready to marry her. So what? So what? He is still the same person after 12 years. He doesn't want to lose the relationship he enjoyed BUT, that doesn't necessarily mean he will be the committed, faithful, responsible man he has never been.
I'd like to see their happily ever after.
Maybe he would be true to form and cheat on her with her friend like he tried in the beginning.
Maybe he would feel "suffocated" like he did immediately after sex and decide to divorce or "go to get milk" without return.
Perhaps they would stay married all their lives and he would consistently display his lack of responsibility and intimacy. He wouldn't show up to Jimmie's ball games, he'd spend most of his time out with friends at bars or at the office. He'd be the first to grab travel assignments for a chance to get away from "the ball and chain." I don't put a lot of stock in a character that for 12 years consistently shows himself to abhor responsibility and then makes a snap decision to get married to a goody two shoes woman who sees rainbows in sewage puddles.
This movie reads as deceptively bad advice to women. And gives a bad role model for men. After the happy ending, I think Harry and Sally are both due to be very miserable.