Rob Reiner’s romantic comedy is funny, warm and worth returning to for Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. Nora Ephron gives them plenty to argue about, though the film sometimes takes its generalisations about men and women too seriously.
Harry Burns and Sally Albright spend a good deal of When Harry Met Sally… talking about what men and women want from each other. We recommend it warmly, even when their theories become tiresome, because Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron make the people saying these things worth knowing. The comedy depends on the distance between a confident statement and the anxious person making it. Reiner gives Ephron’s dialogue the attention it needs, without making every exchange feel like a formal debate.
Billy Crystal’s Harry could easily become a man whose company is more exhausting than the film realises. Crystal lets us sense the worry behind the opinions without asking us to excuse every one of them. We laughed at Harry’s certainty that sex must complicate friendship, because Crystal plays him as though he cannot imagine a sensible objection. Meg Ryan’s Sally is an essential match, since Ryan makes listening and disagreeing feel just as active as speaking. Their ease together makes the friendship plausible, which matters more than any answer to the opening question.
Ephron is particularly good at letting a joke reveal something its speaker might have preferred to keep private. The talk about dating has enough embarrassment in it to stop the cleverness becoming an uninterrupted display. Carrie Fisher, as Marie, and Bruno Kirby, as Jess, are welcome company outside the central pairing. Fisher delivers her lines without fuss, which helps when the dialogue gets a little too neat.
Barry Sonnenfeld’s photography makes New York look inviting enough to justify the film’s indulgence towards its inhabitants. Jane Musky’s production design shares that preference for comfort, and the surroundings rarely compete with the actors for attention. This is a persuasive setting for romantic daydreaming, though it also makes the characters’ disappointments feel unusually well cushioned. The city is attractive, the company articulate, and the film has little appetite for the less agreeable parts of urban life.
Robert Leighton’s editing is especially helpful with all this talk, keeping the exchanges brisk without treating every line as a cue to hurry. At 96 minutes, there is room for the friendship to feel established and little sense of the film waiting for its next big joke. Marc Shaiman’s music supports the lightness, while the jazz soundtrack encourages us to relax into the company. Sometimes that musical reassurance makes the uncertainty about relationships feel a little too easy to endure.
Our reservation concerns Ephron’s broad claims about men and women. They are less interesting than the people she has written, and the film keeps returning to them after the point is clear. Reiner’s fondness for everyone can also make a difficult exchange seem safely contained, and there are moments when the cuteness takes away some of the discomfort. Romantic comedy can accommodate unhappiness, and this one sometimes reassures us before a doubt has had time to trouble us.
What we want from a romantic comedy is a reason to enjoy the couple’s company before being asked to care about their happiness. Crystal and Ryan supply it in the way they attend to each other, irritation included. We would gladly spend another evening with them. Choose it when conversation sounds more appealing than spectacle, and allow a little patience for the theories.
