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When Harry Met Sally.

post #1 of 72
7/28/09 at 6:18am
Thread Starter 
When I did my 2009 top 10 films list recently this film made an appearance, so I wanted to start a discussion about it in more detail.

For me what works about this film is the chemistry of the 4 leads. I have never liked Meg Ryan in anything else yet here I think she does a great job with her kooky character. Also (and this will loose me my geek card) but this is my favoratate Carrie Fisher performance (the second being the Burbs).

I can't say enough about how great Billy Crystal is here as well, he is at the peak of his power in this film and his performance really helps keep the film alive.

Brilliant, cast also some brilliant camera work, an all round gem of a film that gets a lot of bad press for being lumped in with all the other rom-coms.
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post #2 of 72
7/28/09 at 9:39am
Couldn't agree more. You all know how I feel about this one and drafting it in Round 2 of the 80's draft was widely derided as being too soon and contributing to an unnecessary amount of Reiner-drafting.

Thing is, this is a great film through and through, and a great 80's film. Totally agree about the principal cast, I LOVE Bruno Kirby in this film. And Reiner's direction is spot-on throughout. The use of old-timey love standards and the interjections of "real" couples ("I'm Leonard Smalls of the Coney Island Smalls" "And I knew - the way you know about a good melon" never ceases to kill me) adds to the timeless quality of the film.

It seems bizarre to me that this is frowned on when films like The Apartment and Annie Hall are lauded. I'm not saying anything against either of those film, but this is in the same bracket for me - a great romantic comedy of and about the pressures and barriers to romance in it's time.

Good writing, good performances and a classic love story.

Its also funny as hell and eminently re-watchable. Easily one my favourite films, certainly one of the classic films of the 80s.
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post #3 of 72
7/28/09 at 10:51am
Been a long time since I've seen this but it always felt a cut above most romcoms, yeah.
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post #4 of 72
7/28/09 at 10:53am
I'll back you guys up on this one. This film surpasses the 'RomCom' genre to become a flat out GREAT FILM, regardless of your personal tastes. It's an intelligent and genuinely funny film.

Ben pretty much nailed all of the pieces in it that work. It's the perfect storm of the right script, the right director, and the right cast.
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post #5 of 72
7/28/09 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thomas View Post
It seems bizarre to me that this is frowned on when films like The Apartment and Annie Hall are lauded.
It's funny you mention Annie Hall and the real couples in the same post, because those vignettes always struck me as a very Allen-esque touch for some reason.
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post #6 of 72
7/28/09 at 12:05pm
Thread Starter 
I think it gets so much hate because of what followed it. Thanks to the success of this film we had a flood of Meg Ryan (and later Kate Hudson) Rom-Comms, none of which can hold a candle to the genuis of WHMS.
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post #7 of 72
7/28/09 at 12:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
It's the perfect storm of the right script, the right director, and the right cast.
A fuckin' men. None of the key players were ever better.
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post #8 of 72
7/28/09 at 12:21pm
It's all the early character work that makes this such a great film for me. They use very organic ways of introducing the quirks and foibles of all four of the leads.

It's also pretty good proof that Reiner can direct dialogue better then most in Hollywood. It was always one of his great gifts.

Plus, the cinematography is gorgeous and well thought out.
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post #9 of 72
7/28/09 at 12:29pm
And let us not forget the great Harry Connick, Jr. recording of "It Had to Be You!"
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post #10 of 72
7/28/09 at 12:55pm
I think Reiner really went off the rails after this as much as anyone and his output since - certainly in the last 15 years - has been questionable. Though Misery is equally great if much, much darker.
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post #11 of 72
7/28/09 at 12:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
It's funny you mention Annie Hall and the real couples in the same post, because those vignettes always struck me as a very Allen-esque touch for some reason.
The whole movie is practically a love letter to Woody Allen.

But it's a really good movie, so it all works out.
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post #12 of 72
7/28/09 at 2:08pm
I'm of the opinion that this movie should never be mentioned alongside or in same breath as Annie Hall and The Apartment. It's the sit-com version of those classics.
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post #13 of 72
7/28/09 at 2:49pm
I think that sort of belittles what the film manages to accomplish (it's a VERY FUNNY sitcom version with great performances all around), but it's also fairly true. It's not up there with Annie Hall or The Apartment, but then again, what is?
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post #14 of 72
7/28/09 at 2:55pm
Don't fuck with Mr. Zero.
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post #15 of 72
7/28/09 at 3:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thomas View Post
I think Reiner really went off the rails after this as much as anyone and his output since - certainly in the last 15 years - has been questionable. Though Misery is equally great if much, much darker.
American President is pretty good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Elvis
I'm of the opinion that this movie should never be mentioned alongside or in same breath as Annie Hall and The Apartment. It's the sit-com version of those classics.

And it's completely disingenuous (or old movie snobbery, take your pick) to call this just a sit-com version of The Apartment. It's juts as solidly written and I would compare the performances of the leads quite favourably. It has none of the vacuousness you associate with sit-coms (or modern romantic comedies) nor does it have the flat look or direction. There's depth to the script, honest emotional moments and good character work. I'm not sure what more you would want or what you would think is greater in The Apartment.

I am not saying The Apartment isn't wonderful film making but you're selling When Harry Met Sally really short to dismiss it that way.
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post #16 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:07pm
The "boy wins girl" moment in WHMS is earned. That's what distinguishes it from, well, all the shit we've had since. Look at ANY relationship in something like Friends and tell me the shallow - often disgustingly so - thinking that drives two people together/apart in that show is the same as what we see in this film.
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post #17 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:14pm
I hate it when I know right from the first frame just how the movie is going to end. You look at the commercials or trailers for any of these films and you know exactly how it's going to play out; why even see the movie?

This film NEVER takes it for granted that the two of them are going to end up together at the end. Indeed, the story itself could have ended with them leading believable separate lives very easily.
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post #18 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:15pm
Love the banter between Crystal and Kirby in the film.
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post #19 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcnooj82 View Post
Love the banter between Crystal and Kirby in the film.
They had great chemistry together. It's the only thing that makes City Slickers watchable nowadays.
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post #20 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:27pm
What was the falling out that Crystal and Kirby had?
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post #21 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:27pm
Wah!? You must post in my recent City Slickers thread!
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post #22 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcnooj82 View Post
Wah!? You must post in my recent City Slickers thread!
There's a City Slickers thread?
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post #23 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan S~ View Post
There's a City Slickers thread?
A very modest one...

http://chud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117507
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post #24 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
What was the falling out that Crystal and Kirby had?
Apparently there wasn't one. It was all rumours and speculation.

The reason Kirby didn't return to City Slickers was because he didn't have a good time on the first one because of the riding and a pretty bad shoot weather wise. People started the assuming all sorts of things about what had happened.
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post #25 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:39pm
So I'm not entirely clear as to why people are comparing When Harry Met Sally to Annie Hall.

One is a romantic comedy. The other two are very clever romantic dramas with funny bits throughout.

I mean it's a bit like saying Blazing Saddles isn't as good as Unforgiven. One is a pure comedy and the other is a drama with some funny moments in it.

It would be better to compare When Harry Met Sally to actual romantic comedies. It Happened One Night and Philadelphia Story are good places to start, but even then it is difficult. When Harry Met Sally CREATED the modern romantic comedy. Before you're romantic comedies tended to be screwballish with little stakes. When Harry Met Sally gave it's characters the depth of a romantic drama character, but it never tried to be a romantic drama. You always knew Harry and Sally would end up together and you paid to see that happen.

No one walked into Annie Hall to see them get together.
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post #26 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury318 View Post
So I'm not entirely clear as to why people are comparing When Harry Met Sally to Annie Hall.

One is a romantic comedy. The other two are very clever romantic dramas with funny bits throughout.

I mean it's a bit like saying Blazing Saddles isn't as good as Unforgiven. One is a pure comedy and the other is a drama with some funny moments in it.

It would be better to compare When Harry Met Sally to actual romantic comedies. It Happened One Night and Philadelphia Story are good places to start, but even then it is difficult. When Harry Met Sally CREATED the modern romantic comedy. Before you're romantic comedies tended to be screwballish with little stakes. When Harry Met Sally gave it's characters the depth of a romantic drama character, but it never tried to be a romantic drama. You always knew Harry and Sally would end up together and you paid to see that happen.

No one walked into Annie Hall to see them get together.
That's an interesting point. Perhaps it's better to compare Harry with Bringing Up Baby. There's certainly less screwball antics in Harry but the romance and laughter aspect are about the same.
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post #27 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury318 View Post
You always knew Harry and Sally would end up together and you paid to see that happen.
See, I disagree with this. I thought that it was honestly played in such a way that it could have gone either way. I'm glad that they ended up together, but I could also very easily see them going their separate ways with a bittersweet ending.
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post #28 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
See, I disagree with this. I thought that it was honestly played in such a way that it could have gone either way. I'm glad that they ended up together, but I could also very easily see them going their separate ways with a bittersweet ending.
Well yeah you can see them going their separate ways. That's why it is a good romantic comedy. Most romantic comedies have a token break up scene, but you know they'll get back together. When Harry Met Sally has such a scene, but that threat of them being apart feels much realer then in something like...How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days (awful movie).

It's one of the reasons The Proposal was the most compelling romantic comedy I'd scene in a while. Or why Imagine Me and You worked so well. When the big break up happens you can see it being very permanent.

Also I was wrong when I said When Harry Met Sally created the modern romantic comedy. It had help...from Tootsie.
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post #29 of 72
7/28/09 at 4:58pm
Dammit, I kinda liked 'the Proposal' as well. It wasn't GREAT by any means, but it was definitely superior to most of the films of that genre.
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post #30 of 72
7/28/09 at 5:01pm
It's very much a Woody Allen-type film (a lot of the photography even evokes Manhattan and, as Richard mentioned, the couples vignettes are also a very Allen touch), and since Annie Hall is the quintessential Woody Allen film, people compare the two. But Annie Hall is not about a guy and a girl falling in love, it's about a guy looking back at his relationship with a girl and realizing that even though it ended with a broken heart, it was all worth it.

I don't think this automatically disqualifies it from being a romantic comedy, but it's certainly an untraditional one, which When Harry Met Sally is not. I think it's how traditional WHMS is that turns some people off. Which is a shame, because it's very good and very funny.

I think where the sitcom comparison comes in is that, unlike The Apartment and Annie Hall, it does not challenge the audience with it's characters and themes. Which isn't exactly a fair comparison, because it's not what WHMS is going for.
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post #31 of 72
7/28/09 at 5:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
Dammit, I kinda liked 'the Proposal' as well. It wasn't GREAT by any means, but it was definitely superior to most of the films of that genre.
It's all about giving the characters high stakes. You can either cheat like The Proposal and Imagine Me and You and Notting Hill and have the tension come from external forces (deportation/lesbianism/oceans) or you can do what When Harry Met Sally did very, very well and have the tension come from the character.

Unfortunately the latter is much more difficult to do and 9 out of 10 films that try fail.
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post #32 of 72
7/28/09 at 5:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury318 View Post
It's all about giving the characters high stakes. You can either cheat like The Proposal and Imagine Me and You and Notting Hill and have the tension come from external forces (deportation/lesbianism/oceans) or you can do what When Harry Met Sally did very, very well and have the tension come from the character.

Unfortunately the latter is much more difficult to do and 9 out of 10 films that try fail.
Love, Actually does a great job of having character tension. It's one of the few in past ten or so years that I think has done it successfully.
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post #33 of 72
7/28/09 at 6:48pm
See, I kinda hate Love, Actually.
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post #34 of 72
7/29/09 at 3:28am
The comparisons to Annie Hall are there because Crystal is playing Woody Allen. He
s a super neurotic, womanizing misanthrope who rambles about death and human nature and whatnot in the same tone Allen does.

This is an entertaining, enjoyable little movie. The problem though, is that it takes what seems to have been the parts of Woody Allen movies that were popular (the quirks and neuroses, the comedic verbal exchanges that call back to screwballs) and gave it over to a movie with a crowd pleasing happy ending. I'm not claiming that WHMS in and of itself doesn't earn its ending, but something about the Allen aesthetic just doesn't fully jibe with a man running to profess his love to the perfect woman (at midnight on New Years Eve of all things) and be vindicated with the happily ever after ending. While not destroying what comes before it, it certainly doesn't all click perfectly. I can see what is meant by calling this the sitcom version of Annie Hall (not the apartment though--characters, tones and situations are far too different in each film).
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post #35 of 72
7/29/09 at 3:29am
Double post.
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post #36 of 72
7/29/09 at 4:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thomas View Post
See, I kinda hate Love, Actually.
A lot of Love, Actually is pretty flat, but that scene with Emma Thompson alone in her room after getting the Joni Mitchell CD is fantastic.
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post #37 of 72
7/30/09 at 7:47am
Thread Starter 
Love Actually is a good film, not Curitis' best (that honor goes to The Boat that Rocked) but still pretty fine.
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post #38 of 72
7/30/09 at 11:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Savage View Post
Love Actually is a good film, not Curitis' best (that honor goes to The Boat that Rocked) but still pretty fine.
Haven't seen The Boat yet but glad to hear it's really good.

I think Love, Actually really works for married people a lot more then single people.
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post #39 of 72
7/30/09 at 12:01pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan S~ View Post
Haven't seen The Boat yet but glad to hear it's really good.

I think Love, Actually really works for married people a lot more then single people.
When it came out over here I did a post release thread but as it hadn't got to the states by that point the thread had about 10 replies and died.
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post #40 of 72
7/30/09 at 1:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan S~ View Post

I think Love, Actually really works for married people a lot more then single people.
I dunno. "Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love" is a quote probably used by many, many single people, myself included.
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post #41 of 72
7/30/09 at 2:44pm
Not to further derail the thread, but Love, Actually is a handful of great moments, lightly sprinkled onto a pile of shit. I'm amazed so many people have positive feelings towards it.
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post #42 of 72
7/30/09 at 2:56pm
It's trite garbage.
The kind of shit you people would hate if it starred Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson instead of a bunch of cool british people.
And that dude stalking Kiera Knightly is a total asshole.
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post #43 of 72
7/30/09 at 3:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobClark View Post
The kind of shit you people would hate if it starred Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson instead of a bunch of cool british people.
And that dude stalking Kiera Knightly is a total asshole.
That preeeeeetty much says it all.
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post #44 of 72
7/31/09 at 3:42am
That's why we have Four Weddings and A Funeral instead.

WHMS uses a bit too much Casablanca, but other than that its perfect, thanks mainly to 80's Carrie Fisher (I wish her 30 Rock appearance could of referenced this role more)

The Wagon Wheel table scene still cracks me up every single time, more than all the other bits.
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post #45 of 72
7/31/09 at 6:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobClark View Post
It's trite garbage.
The kind of shit you people would hate if it starred Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson instead of a bunch of cool british people.
And that dude stalking Kiera Knightly is a total asshole.
With the excepiton of Nesson's charater pretty much everyone in that film is an asshole.
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post #46 of 72
7/31/09 at 2:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Savage View Post
With the excepiton of Nesson's charater pretty much everyone in that film is an asshole.
Just like in real life.
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post #47 of 72
7/31/09 at 9:58pm
I don't know...I likes'd me the "fat" girl that Hugh Grant falls for.
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post #48 of 72
8/4/09 at 7:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury318 View Post
Well yeah you can see them going their separate ways. That's why it is a good romantic comedy. Most romantic comedies have a token break up scene, but you know they'll get back together. When Harry Met Sally has such a scene, but that threat of them being apart feels much realer then in something like...How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days (awful movie).

It's one of the reasons The Proposal was the most compelling romantic comedy I'd scene in a while. Or why Imagine Me and You worked so well. When the big break up happens you can see it being very permanent.

Also I was wrong when I said When Harry Met Sally created the modern romantic comedy. It had help...from Tootsie.
I felt the same way about The Break-Up. It could have EASILY gone either way at the end there and every character felt real.

Man, Peyton Reed is an underrated director.
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post #49 of 72
8/5/09 at 5:48am
Thread Starter 
War of the Roses does the concept in the breakup way better. The scene with Douglas in a top hat pissing on the fish gets me everytime.
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post #50 of 72
8/5/09 at 4:50pm
I'll agree with the ughs on Love, Actually. A few fantastic moments (Emma Thompson made me appreciate Joni Mitchell) surrounded by a number of vignettes not worked out well enough to fill an entire movie. But it does speak to the drought of romantic comedies we've had since Nora Ephron started writing ONLY garbage.

And I ran across this rambly review of The Ugly Truth that I thought really nailed down one of the reasons When Harry Met Sally worked so well and why many modern romantic comedies aren't so hot.
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