Among the Elect Posse of Exceptionally Valid Romantic Comedies

Rating: 10/10 (26 August 2009)

When Harry Met Sally... is among the elect posse of exceptionally valid romantic comedies, because each scene ends, in whatever way, significantly different from our expectations. Many girls, and guys, like my dad, which is strange, are drawn im perpetuum to films that have been made since that ride roughshod over nuance in favor of embellishing every emotional cue to the degree that we won't be surprised if leafhoppers just began feeding off of them. But only seldom has a modern romantic comedy with all the button-down ingredients---Manhattan yuppie life, New Years' Eve drama, man-to-man hoo-ha in the batting cage, humor drawn from a woman's uptightness---really worked on a sincere and disciplined level like this film, which even has the shrewdness to make a Harry Connick, Jr. soundtrack appealing.
Minus the machismo complex, a chick flick is slang for a film designed to appeal to a female target audience. Including the macho dismissal would mean reference to films that are heavy with emotion or contain relationship-centered themes. Including the macho dismissal, this movie is not a chick flick. As for minus: If it's good, it doesn't matter. With a combination of imagination and realism, Nora Ephron's big breakthrough script raises the question "Can men and women ever just be friends?" and advances many notions about love that have become household concepts now, like the "high-maintenance" girlfriend and the "transitional person."
Ephron never seems to have a problem with crafting very tight-knit self-contained plays from scene to scene, aligning broad comedy and seasoned pondering so that they spring from the same catalysts. Rob Reiner keenly gift-wraps it for us, with the thematic progress and humor reassured, but it is never disingenuous. Yes, that's Meg Ryan. Yes, that's Billy Crystal. But they come off just as real as Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher effortlessly do. The beats and timing, even when exaggerated, are unflappably natural. Caryn James said it was like the sitcom version of a Woody Allen film, full of amusing lines and scenes, all infused with an awkward familiarity. In spite of my normal defensiveness of this film, not to mention any and every Woody Allen one, I think I can live with that assessment on the grounds it is succinct and indeed comparable.