In Session with "When Harry Met Sally..."
Harry Burns and Sally Albright, I can see you now...
This is In Session with Pop Culture. A written recap series-- of your favorite TV, movies, and music --with a twist. 🍋
Inspired by Emma Specter’s column for Vogue where she narrates her thoughts as she watches a movie, movie trailer, or gets a first look of an upcoming movie. This is my take on that, weaving my personal reflections together with any psychological concepts I stumble upon along the way. I am not teasing out every single concept. I’m off the clock. This is a creative, playful, and speculative—not clinical—endeavor.
One thing before we jump in, I show up very much as myself here. Myself first, and all my other labels are secondary. If a therapist speaking candidly feels like too much to your system, that is absolutely is OK and this may not be the best particular newsletter for you.1
Often considered one the greatest romantic comedies of all time,2 1989’s When Harry Met Sally…is the epitome of a classic. Directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron, this movie is somehow able to be conflated with autumn AND New Year’s Eve AND Valentine’s Day. Pick any given day of the 365/6 in a year to watch it and you could be justified in doing so. Scenes from this film are so well known that 35 years later, it can be referenced in a Super Bowl ad with no preface needed. It has influenced pop culture in a way where there is no going back.
It’s the rom-com that launched a thousand more Friends to Lovers ships: 13 Going on 30, Friends We Meet on Vacation, Friends With Kids, You’ve Got Mail, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, A Lot Like Love,3 One Day, a movie that just cuts to the chase, Just Friends, the list goes on. One could even say, my new favorite TV show find, Platonic, comes to a different conclusion, but asks the same question: Can straight men and straight women be friends?
I was late to the WHMS… game. First and foremost, when it premiered in theaters in July 1989, I was only 3 weeks out from my very 1st birthday. Two, even though Pretty Woman was considered unobjectionable viewing for my toddler eyes, I’m guessing my mom thought the conversations in this one were a bit too mature for me. As we were staunchly a Meg Ryan household, I’m still surprised this one evaded me until college.4 Prior to the writing of this newsletter you’re reading, I’d only seen this movie a few times.
After 3 weeks of working on this, I could recite the dialogue in my sleep.
CAST
Harry Burns played by Billy Crystal
Sally Albright played by Meg Ryan
Marie played by Carrie Fisher
Jess played by Bruno Kirby
Joe played by Steven Ford
Alice played by Lisa Jane Persky
Helen played by Harley Jane Kozak
The immediately iconic “It Had to Be You” plays. (Editor’s note: I didn’t catch this on the first run through, but this was Harry Connick Jr. singing; his first big break and Grammy!).
Vibe check: This is beautiful, but I am current hopped up on coffee and the piano is not helping.
Keeping with the namesake, we begin with one story of many meet-cutes we hear throughout the film. You can read When My Husband Met Me…here. I can’t remember, are these interviews with real couples?5
This 1st couple. They seem to be emphasizing still married, but I’m thinking in my head “still married” and “still happy” are two different things. Also, the big hook of their story is they got married after knowing each other for 2 weeks. Let’s be real, getting married that quickly 9 times out of 10 isn’t romantic, it’s 🚩🚩🚩🚩
Great shot of The University of Chicago.
We get our first glimpse of Meg Ryan—and she’s glowing. Reflective of my 2 rating on The Kinsey Scale, 90’s films were just as much about me falling in love with the female lead as the male. Meg is sacred to me.
Doing this road trip with a stranger. Ooo boy.6 Poll real quick:
8. Sally laying on the horn just woke my cat, Ernie, haha!
Harry jumps right in.
Harry: Why don’t you tell me the story of your life? (spits grape seeds out the window)7
Ut oh. Spitting grape seeds aside, I’m beginning to worry I’ll relate to Harry more than Sally. I feel like that’s not the look, but this is a question I’ve been known to ask. 😬
Sally: The story of my life?
Harry: We got 18 hours to kill before we hit New York.
Sally: The story of my life isn’t even gonna get us out of Chicago. I mean nothing has happened to me yet. That’s why I’m going to New York
Harry: So something can happen to you?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Like what?
Sally: Like I’m going to journalism school to become a reporter.
Harry: So you can write about things that happen to other people?
Sally: (looking dejected for truly a millisecond) That’s one way to look at it.
Sally would have a killer Substack, right?
Harry: Suppose nothing happens to you. Suppose you live there your whole life and nothing happens, you never meet anybody, you never become anything and finally you die one of those New York deaths where nobody notices for two weeks until the smell drifts into the hallway. (spits grape seeds out the window8).
Famously, Harry began as modeled somewhat after Rob Reiner. As Ephron once said, "He was neurotic, he was in love with his neuroses, and it was very charming and funny. So I just thought — that’s Harry." I feel like I can even hear Crytal doing the cadence of Reiner’s way of speaking.
As I look at this interaction, I feel like I can see Harry cycling through parts of himself. First, he’s leaning in, curious about her, wanting to make a connection, then she says something really earnest. It’s too tender, too open-hearted and hopeful, it elicits his cynic, his own fears. It’s one the most common ones: What if what I really want in this life doesn’t happen?
He then asks her if she thinks about death. Harry argues that by thinking about death constantly, he will be more prepared than she will—for what, we don’t know exactly. She replies, “In the meantime, you’re gonna ruin your whole life waiting for it.”
I lean more toward Sally’s perspective here, however I have my own host of worrying parts who do adamantly believe worrying is preparation so I get it.
Not to be this person, but if they were driving from U of C to NYC they wouldn’t be driving past this part of the Chicago Skyline. Sorry, not sorry.
They talk about Casablanca. Sally explains she thinks Ingrid Bergman made the right choice to get on the plane with Victor Laszlo (played by Paul Henreid). She argues it’s better to be practical, than make big leaps for love. Harry pauses, “Oh, you just haven’t had really good sex yet.”
Road Trip Outfit
This first ‘fit is from the diner scene on their road trip as she argues that she has indeed had good sex. With a man named Sheldon, if you must know. Sheldon Hive rise.
A part of me wishes I could order like Sally does. I know this is a recurring bit throughout the movie about how particular she is, but some of us are not particular enough 🙋🏼♀️. Of course, there is an extreme of this that can be harmful, but when you’re as far on the other side as I am, it’s sort of aspirational.
These two really do have that kind of chemistry you can’t manufacture. It’s just magic.
Sally: What? Do I have something on my face?
Harry: You’re a very attractive person.
Sally: Thank you.
Harry: Amanda never said how attractive you were.
Sally: Well, maybe she doesn’t think I’m attractive.
Harry: I don’t think it’s a matter of opinion.
(putting the damage traditional standards of beauty have done to us aside for 2 seconds, he’s starts off very smooth here, but then…)
Harry: Empirically, you are attractive.
EMPIRICALLY. What an honor 🙄🙄
Sally: (stands up outraged) Amanda is my friend.
Harry: So?
Sally: So you’re going with her.
Harry: So?
Sally: So you’re coming on to me!
Harry: No, I wasn’t.
(Sally looks up at him in disbelief)
Harry: What? Can’t a man say a woman is attractive without it being a come-on? Alright, alright. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that it was a come-on. What do you want me to do about it? I take it back, okay? I take it back.
Sally: You can’t take it back.
Harry: Why not?
Sally: Because it’s already out there.
Harry: Oh, geez! What are we supposed to do? Call the cops, it’s already out there!
I deeply regret ever saying he was smooth.
A few moments later in the car, Sally tells Harry that they are just going to be friends. Then we get the tagline for the film (and all the ones to come):
Harry: You realize, of course, that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I’m saying is and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
This moment where they say goodbye once they arrive in NYC feel so charged. It’s unclear what is happening between them at this point (is it hate? lust? love? all of the above?) but it’s not nothing. To walk away from each other with something this unfinished hanging in the air. Yeesh. It’s like when you can hear electricity buzzing from the power lines overhead.
5 years passed!! I do not remember it being that long.
Hahhaa. Harry recognizes Sally’s boyfriend, Joe, and not her. That is a fun misdirect.
Sally’s ordering helping Harry place her on the plane is another clever touch.
Is everything about sex because you make everything about sex, Harry? I don’t find it particularly novel to find someone hot. It can be fun, exciting, etc, but it’s also pretty pedestrian. It’s not unlike other things we all do–drink water, take a shit, sleep. On second thought, I guess we do obsess about those things, too 😂😂
Airport Outfit
We never get to see what’s she wearing for bottoms. I’m guessing in the movie it was a matching skirt. Today, I think she’d wear a pair of travel-friendly jeans like these.
Harry talks about restlessness after sex.
Harry: …you go back to her place, you have sex and the minute you’re finished, you know what goes through your mind?... “How long do I have to lie here and hold her before I can get up and go home?” “Is 30 seconds enough?
Sally: That’s what you’re thinking? Is that true?
Harry: Sure. All men think that. How long do you like to be held afterwards? All night, right?
Sally: (looking at him horrified)
Harry: See, that’s the problem. Somewhere between 30 seconds and all night is your problem.
FUCK OFF HARRY. Those are hard-earned chemicals that some of us want to luxuriate in.
Sally: I don’t have a problem.
Harry: Yeah, you do.
Instead of saying this is unilaterally “just the way men/women are,” we could get more curious about why someone may be feeling that way after sex—and finding ways to attend to that.
What Harry is describing sounds a lot like Postcoital Dysphoria—anxious, restlessness, depressive feelings after otherwise enjoyable sex. This may seem obvious, but while consensual sex can be wonderful, it’s also intense. There are hormonal changes happening, not to mention the intimacy of being that close to someone. When it’s all said and done, it can bring up a lot.
With Harry, we’ve already begun to get the sense that when he gets close to something intimate, he does many things, one of which is to get misanthropic. We saw that in their first chat in the car. On the one hand, he seems to wants the familiarity, but once he feels it or sees too much of it, he retreats. It looks like what you may expect with someone who displays a fearful-avoidant attachment (Jules in My Best Friend’s Wedding is another example of this).9
This is where the therapist in me realizes we learn absolutely nothing about their family of origin. 🤔
My husband—not not a fearful avoidant type one may say…I wouldn’t, but some could say—and I joke about this. I like to guess where his mind goes. My guesses are typically in this order: (1) Some home maintenance (2) The Detroit Lions or (3) Work.
Oh, Harry is offering an amendment to his rule about men and women. Let’s listen in to this sage wisdom he’s dispersing…
Harry: This is an Amendment to the earlier rule: If two people are in a relationship the pressure of possible involvement is lifted.
(Sally shakes her head and walks ahead of him)
Harry: That doesn’t work either because what happens then is the person you’re involved with can’t understand why you need to be friends with the person you’re just friends with, like it means something is missing from the relationship and why you don’t have to go outside to get it?
I feel thankful we have mostly outgrown—or we are trying to, right?—this idea that one relationship should fulfill all our needs (See Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity).
This next interview couple is depressing me. She remembers all his ex’s name for him. His line to initially woo her, while at an event with another woman mind you: “What are you doin’ after?” The bar is in hell.
Time jump: 5 more years!!
Now we meet Carrie Fischer’s character, Marie. She waits all of 15 seconds to say, “Joe’s available.” after Sally says they broke up. 😂😂 I shouldn’t have, but I forgot how good Carrie Fischer is in this. She’s more than good, she’s essential.
🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥
Sally: What are you saying, I should get married to someone right away in case he’s about to die?
Alice: At least you could say you were married.
Bye, bye. I need to leave now.
Harry tells Jess he’s separated. “...since the last thing you want to do is date your wife who is supposed to love you.” Maybe you should have, Harry, and what does loving you have to do with no longer wanting to go on dates?
Bookstore & Stroll Outfit
I also love this red Sezane jumper, but felt adamantly it needed to be a turtleneck.
Also, can’t not point out Harry is reading What Jung really said when he notices Sally in the bookstore. A book by E. A. Bennet about Carl Jung, known as the father of analytical psychology.
I love this line from Nicholas Barber writing for the BBC about the movie, “Why else would Sally spot Harry lurking in a bookshop's Personal Growth section? His personal growth is the closest thing the film has to a plot.” 👏👏👏👏
The way Sally so clearly and compassionately says to Marie about the latter’s married boyfriend, “No one thinks he’s ever going to leave her.” This is a lesson in friendship and I’m taking notes.
I find Sally’s reflection about why she broke up with Joe for the final time to be so resonant. She describes how their reasoning for not having kids was “We want to be able to jet off to Rome at a moments notice.” For them this framing was about having kids, but I feel like we do this with other stuff, too. All these things we say we can’t do just in case we do something else. To her ultimate point, "The thing is, Joe, we never do fly off to Rome on a moments notice."
I think the only way this movie works is if Sally sees through Harry’s bullshit. Example:
Harry: You know the first time we met, I didn’t like you that much.
Sally: I didn’t like you.
Harry: Yeah, you did. You were just so uptight then. You’re much softer now.
Sally: You know I hate that kind of remark. It sounds like a compliment, but really it’s an insult.
Harry: Okay, you’re still hard as nails.
Sally: I just didn’t wanna sleep with you and you had to write it off as a character flaw, instead of dealing with the possibility that it might have something to do with you.
Right.
Harry: What’s the statute of limitations on apologies.
Sally: Ten years.
Harry: Ooo. I can just get it in under the wire.
Sally: Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?
Harry: Are we becoming friends now?
Sally: Well…Yeah.
Harry: Great! A woman friend. Hm. You know you may be the first attractive woman I’ve not wanted to sleep with in my entire life.
Sally: That’s wonderful, Harry.
One of my favorite shots of the movie is where he tosses cards into a bowl.
This low/high maintenance conversation they have while they watch Casablanca over the phone—that allegedly popularized these terms (!!!)— is another yuck moment of benevolent sexism10 seen throughout the film.
Harry: Ingrid Bergman. Now she’s low-maintenance.
Sally: Low-maintenance?
Harry: There are two kinds of women: high-maintenance and low-maintenance.
Sally: […] Which one am I?
Harry: You’re the worst kind. You’re high-maintenance, but you think you’re low-maintenance
Sally: I don’t see that.
Harry: You don’t see that.
(he teases her about her specific ordering I mentioned earlier)
Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know, high-maintenance.
No, Harry. Not high-maintenance. Assertive. As Kendrick Lamar would say, “Don’t tell no lie about me, and I won’t tell no truths about you.”
Here I go, about to tell truths about Harry…
This interaction makes me doubly sad/mad because he’s glorifying a woman being a certain way11 that he doesn’t actually seem to even want to be with himself. If that were true, he wouldn’t be spending all his time with Sally. But he has been led to believe—via misogyny, the gift that keeps on giving—a subservient, quiet, “easy” partner is the ideal and that will make him “happy.”
I started reading Elise Loehnen’s On Our Best Behavior: The Price Women Pay to Be Good yesterday. In it she says, “…we are all stuck in a web. Every one of us is conditioned and caught in a system that we cannot see—but it’s effects are suffocating and deadening.”
Suffocating and deadening. Yes. So even though I have to hope that even in 1989 they included this back and forth to scrutinize that way of thinking, Sally not missing a beat before rejecting the premise, it hurts to hear—breath harder to find, aliveness seeping out my eyes.
Futhermore, I find it a waste of energy to act like any of us aren’t high maintenance in our way. I’ve found the truth is it takes a lot of work to be a human being. If someone called me high-maintenance today, I’d respond, “You have no idea.”
In the end, I will say the idea of watching a movie over the phone does appeal to me. Call me! 📞
The Fall Foliage Outfit
I know I’m gonna hear about it, but I couldn’t with the hat so I modernized the look.
This sex dream conversation is just so good. Harry’s recurrent one centers around being judged about his performance and Sally’s is about some faceless guy ripping her clothes off.
Harry: That’s it? A faceless guy rips off your clothes. And that’s the sex fantasy you’ve been having since you were 12. Exactly the same?
Sally: Well, sometimes I vary it a little.
Harry: Which part?
Sally: What I’m wearing.
No notes. Perfectly written and performed.
The way Harry looks at Sally during the scene where they do voices back and forth is so warm—it almost feels like they are melting into each other with joy and playfulness. (Editor’s note: I found out later, the voice was an improvisation on Crystal’s part. You can even see Ryan look off to the side toward Reiner to see if this was OK and he told her to keep going.)
I hate this next part. But it makes sense given what we have learned about Harry so far. We have this sweet, tender moment where they talk in voices and he asks her out, she says no because she has a date. He proceeds to play it off like he doesn’t care and then promptly tells her to wear more skirts. 🫣 This to me, reads as a neg through and through. She seems to read it as a compliment and smiles at him. Admittedly, I probably would have too if I was her in 1989. Shit, probably even 2009.
Now She’s Wearing a Skirt Outfit
We’ve arrived at THE diner scene. Sometimes I revisit iconic scenes from movies and that’s all they are–a relic. This one is anything but hollow. It’s perfect.
When we see them at this NYE party, you can tell how when they stop being so defended with their words, they can open up to what is happening between them. Talking only communicates so much—in fact, non-verbal communication is thought to be more honest than verbal at times.12
Double-date observations with Jess and Marie: What is interesting about Harry and Sally is while they are often arguing, they are able to do so, at least some of the time, in a fun-loving and energizing way because they are balancing that with also having really listened to each other.
I’ve been told my civility/warmness toward most of my exes is unusual, but I feel like it’s fair to say this “reunion” between Harry and his ex-wife, Helen, is so empty it’s scary.
Running into Harry’s Ex\Wagon-Wheel Outfit
This outfit is simple, but it’s one of my favorites because it’s exactly what I see in my mind when I think of what my mom wore in the 90’s.
I know technically she’s wearing white, maybe cream, but to me, there is a structure of a top like this I know well—thinking 90’s Land’s End—so I went shape over color in the replication. Two runner-ups for the mock neck: 1 and 2.
This wagon wheel table conversation really got me. It’s juxtaposing the beginning of a relationship, the moving in bubble of love against the heartbreak, cynicism and low-key groundedness of someone who just got their heart shredded. Harry says, “Because someday, believe it or not, you’ll go 15 rounds over who’s gonna get this coffee table. This stupid, wagon-wheel, Roy Rogers, garage sale coffee table!” He storms off. Sally offers explanations. Marie looks up at Jess lovingly and says, “I want you to know…that I will never want that wagon-wheel coffee table.”
My kink is watching Meg Ryan yell at people.
There is nothing like watching her unravel. It’s so freeing to watch.
Harry and Sally have begun to make out and it’s occurring to me how many god damn lights are on.
I don’t like that this is their first bone. Up until he took this very moment to finally not have boundaries about their relationship, he handled her distress pretty well. Sweet, encouraging, making space for her feelings. But this is a risk when you’re so repressed. It all bursts through and you don’t get to decide when or how much.
Harry, my dude, just take a breath. Can you imagine? What a little therapy, reading a lot of books by feminist authors and some box breathing could have done for this here lass.
But instead…this.
© Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. They’re at dinner the next night. Harry says, “It’s so nice when you can sit with someone and not have to talk.” I do believe this in my soul to be true but, y’all, this is a pregnant ass silence.
One way to look at what happened after sleeping together could be the idea that they are so used to feeling the chemistry, the charge between them, but everything—physically, emotionally, sexually—just got released so they feel “nothing.” It takes a minute for the energy to rebuild and I don’t just mean sexually, but also sexually. A lot of tension—like a decade of intermittent banter with very little pressure release—was just set free, so of course there is a lull. LET THERE BE A LULL!!!!
A brief detour if you’ll indulge me and I know you will. There is this scene in Take This Waltz—a 2011 Sarah Polley film with Seth Rogen, Michelle Williams, and Sarah Silverman—where Williams and Silverman13 are seeing each other after awhile, both disappointed in the other. Silverman says,
“You think everything can be worked out if you just make the right move? That must be thrilling... Life has a gap in it. It just does. You don’t go crazy trying to fill it like some lunatic.”
I’ll pause while we all take in this line of dialogue that has haunted (and given me peace) for going on 15 years now.
They go at it after Jess and Marie’s wedding. We can see the charge building again.
Harry: Why can’t we get past this? I mean, are we gonna carry this thing around forever?
Sally: Forever? It just happened!
Harry: It happened three weeks ago. You know how a year to a person is like seven years to a dog?
Sally: Yes…Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario?
Harry: Yes.
Sally: Who is the dog?
Harry: You are.
Sally: I am. I am the dog! I am the dog! I…
(Sally starts walking away out of the reception area and gestures for Harry to follow)
Sally: I don’t see that, Harry. If anybody is the dog, you are the dog. You wanna act like what happened didn’t mean anything!
Harry: I’m not saying it didn’t mean anything. I”m saying why does it have to mean everything?
Great line, bad logic.
Sally: Because it does and you should know that better than anybody because the minute that it happened you walked right out the door!
Bingo.
This montage over the voice-over is really well done.
And then we get “It Had to Be You” again, but the Frank Sinatra version. I do love a bookend like that.
And THE line, and it’s a good line:
“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
I’ve held my figurative flashlight up to Harry more here because, one, I think it’s warranted and, two, I think he can handle it. The truth is, if he was a client in my office sitting across from me, I think we could do some great work. I’d ask where he learned these things about women and men, about his seeming authority to make sweeping generalizations about entire populations, about this terror of getting and staying close to another person.
After having done SUCH a close read on this film, it ultimately doesn’t feel like a romance to me. It feels more like a story about culture and how it affects how see each other, a story about how we learn to let people be close to us…and us to them and all our collective eccentricities.
So perhaps still a love story.
All I know for certain is I love them.14
If you want more When Harry Met Sally…:
“My Brain Literally Cannot Process When Harry Met Sally... The Same Way After Learning These 40 Mind-Blowing Facts” by Jenna Guillaume for Buzzfeed
“‘It gets everything so right’: Why When Harry met Sally is the greatest romcom of all time” By Nicholas Barber for the BBC
I’ll Have What She’s Having: How Nora Ephron’s Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy by Erin Carlson (on Substack @ You've Got Mail)
Meg Ryan & Billy Crystal REUNITE for When Harry Met Sally’s 35th Anniversary, RECREATE Iconic Scene from Entertainment Tonight (Video)
Also,
can’twon’t do a rom-com without mentioning this piece:
Questions for you:
Do you have anyone you deeply connected with for a brief moment in a time and then it just abruptly ended like when Harry and Sally parted ways for the first time in NYC?
What’s your association with this movie? When did you first see it? What time of year do you re-watch?
In the original script, Harry and Sally don’t get together.15 Nora Ephron has said she doesn’t think these two get together in real life. In your version of events, do you think Harry and Sally ever got together? Are they still together? Are they happy?
Coming up: Later this week for paid subscribers, I’ll be getting into episodes 2 and 3 of the current season of Shrinking. You can find the first episode deep dive here. Even if the show isn’t your thing…
Disclaiming. Therapy can be great. This ain’t therapy. You can find more info and my full disclaimer on my about page here. Abridged version: I’m a therapist, but not your therapist—even if you are a client of mine ~hi, dear one!~ this isn’t a session. I don’t think you could possibly confuse this newsletter with mental health treatment. Alas if that were to happen, let me say definitively, dialoguing is an entertainment and informational newsletter only, not a substitute for mental health treatment.
Come say hi! Any comments, questions, suggestions, please feel free to email me at dialoguingsubstack@gmail.com.16 Love hearing from you for any and all reasons!
ICYMI:
say more: January 2026—a (first ever) author interview, Heated Rivalry 🏒, 48 hours in Charleston and I share some resources I’ve found (and needed) for how to support different facets of activism RN: Education, Engagement, and Regulation.
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Haven’t watched this one in a long time, but I remember loving it.
French Kiss was our movie of choice in her cannon. That and Addicted to Love. I also, personally, loved You’ve Got Mail—I saw it in theaters several times—but I think my mom found Ryan’s character in that one too sweet. Our venn diagram is a circle under a more unraveling protagonist.
Editor’s Note: The stories are real accounts, but these are actors delivering them.
She says its 18 hours, but Google just told me 12. Hmmm. Has our transportation infrastructure improved that much or have speed limits just gone up?
Vile
Again, vile
A type of misogyny where women are rewarded when engaging in traditional ideas of “how women should be” : One way of being a woman=good and the other=bad. In this case, Ingrid Bergman is being rewarded for being low-maintenance and Sally is being punished for being high-maintenance. You can read more about it here.
One, I would argue doesn’t even organically exist.
There are exceptions to this and it doesn’t mean we can override someone’s verbal expression of something. I hate that I have to caveat this, but I fear I must.
Which, like, get these two in a movie together again
Nora, too, of course but couldn’t find a picture of all 4 of them.
That ending sounds a lot like the final scene in The Break-up.
I used to say just reply to the email, but I just discovered some of those from y’all were going to my spam folder ‼️😵 Which I’m so sorry and bummed about.
This is really fun!! Re: Harry’s neuroses, those were Rob Reiner’s (as well as his Castle Rock co-producer Andy Sheinman). Andy was a perpetual bachelor and casually sexist (he didn’t think women were funny until he met Nora). But Rob had a strong mother and loved women. He just couldn’t figure out to have a relationship after his divorce from Penny Marshall. Rob was also depressed but very funny about it. Nora said he loved being depressed. She interviewed him like the journalist that she was and based Harry Burns on Rob. The movie was initially going to end with Harry and Sally parting ways — however, Rob met Michele Singer (his future wife) on the set in NYC and changed the ending to a happy one. If Rob hadn’t met Michele, I’m not sure the movie would endure as it has. In the ‘80s, a lot of couples were divorcing — I think audiences really connected with Harry’s post-Helen despair. WHMS gave people hope, like all the great romcoms do. But it stands apart because of its unabashed sadness. A lot of romcoms these days are afraid to be sad. But Reiner was very in touch with his emotions and generous in sharing them. He was/is such a gift to cinema.
I know our parents took us to both Sleepless and Seattle and You’ve Got Mail in the theater. I think we watched When Harry Met Sally on TBS when we were about 11. My first boyfriend Harry mentioned it to me the summer after 7th grade because my first name is Sally and I knew the movie pretty well. I also remember having this men and women can’t be friends idea in my head even in middle school. I always had a crush on all the boys I was friends with at that time! I remember watching a lot of movies as a family especially on Friday nights. Dinner and a Movie on TBS was a mainstay of many Fridays in the 90s! When my best friend stayed over in middle school, my parents were still sitting with us to watch movies a lot of the time and she liked a lot of the romcoms too.
My church camp relationship with my first boyfriend Harry had a few days of connection then complete separation and then reconnection a year later. With my HS boyfriend we initially connected when I was in 7th grade and he was in 8th for the all state band tryouts. We didn’t end up becoming friends until we were both in HS marching band together and I barely talked to him the year I was in 8th grade.
As I mentioned in my comment to Laura I recall Ashley Iaconetti having an online show on YouTube called The Story of Us that was modeled on the couple interviews and she and her now husband Jared did an episode to talk about how they finally got together after being “just friends” for years on Bachelor in Paradise.
Pacey has a line about high maintenance women in season 5 of Dawson’s Creek to Charlie as played by Chad Michael Murray where he says he would use the term high quality. I always liked that line.
I watched Remember the Titans on the phone with my friend. It was fun!
And I think Harry and Sally would be together, he was always able to make her laugh and I could see her soften towards him when they would fight. And he was good at apologizing, especially in that scene after they had bumped into Helen!
I loved this one, I haven’t watched this movie in a long time but it’s all still so familiar to me, may be time for a rewatch!