Nora Ephron makes romantic comedy out of people who discuss love more confidently than they manage it. We value her jokes and her actors, though her faith in coincidence sometimes spares the characters difficult conversations.
Fi1m perspective
In Sleepless in Seattle (1993), the people offering romantic advice sound far more certain than the situation warrants. Ephron keeps the prospective lovers apart and gives those around them room to discuss how men and women behave. We laughed because she catches how confidently people prescribe solutions when none of the risk is theirs. Her direction makes those conversations worth hearing, even when the romance they support needs more development.
Her ear for that talk was established in screenwriting, with When Harry Met Sally... (1989) helping to define her reputation before she directed a film. She had already written Silkwood (1983), and made her directing debut with This Is My Life (1992). It was Sleepless in Seattle that established her as a director of romantic comedies. The attraction is easy to understand: her characters have opinions, and the jokes give us reasons to spend time with them.
In Sleepless in Seattle, the screenplay she shares with Jeff Arch and David S. Ward gives Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan a romance sustained largely at a distance. The actors earn the tenderness, but the separation limits what Ephron can show us about the couple together. The middle stretch drags because waiting has to serve in place of further acquaintance. Its use of An Affair to Remember makes clear how much the characters rely on films to picture what love should be. We wanted Ephron to question those borrowed expectations more often, rather than keep ordinary disappointment safely out of their way.
You've Got Mail (1998) continued her work as both director and screenwriter, while Julie & Julia (2009) was her final film. Food, letters and references to older films recur across her work, alongside women allowed to be flawed and to make their own decisions. These are useful interests for a romantic comedy director: they give people something to care about besides finding a partner. We are less persuaded when Ephron lets fate settle matters that a harder conversation might have tested. Start with Sleepless in Seattle, and be prepared to forgive a good deal of coincidence.
Biography
Nora Ephron was an American screenwriter, director and journalist. She was born in New York City on 19 May 1941 and began her career writing for newspapers and magazines before turning to film.
Ephron wrote the screenplays for Silkwood (1983), When Harry Met Sally... (1989) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993); she also directed the last of these. Her other directing credits include You've Got Mail (1998), Bewitched (2005) and Julie & Julia (2009). She sometimes collaborated with her sister Delia Ephron. Ephron received three Academy Award nominations for Original Screenplay. She died in New York City on 26 June 2012.
