'When Harry Met Sally...." movie review

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In July of 1989, Columbia Pictures released “When Harry Met Sally…” a witty romantic comedy written by the late Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle”) and directed by Rob (“Stand by Me”) Reiner. Starring Billy Crystal as Harry Burns and Meg Ryan as Sally Albright, “When Harry Met Sally…” is a clever, humorous, yet unexpectedly moving look at the relationships between men and women. It covers various aspects of love and gender roles, but its most famous theme is Can men and women really be friends?  

“When Harry Met Sally…” follows the course of the titular characters’ relationship over a 12-year period that begins in 1977 and ends roughly in the movie’s Present Day. As Ephron and Reiner set up the scenario, Harry and Sally have jgraduated from the University of Chicago and are headed east to start new lives and careers in New York. They have never met before, but Sally’s a friend of Harry’s girlfriend Amanda (Michelle Nicastro) and has agreed to take Harry along as a co-driver for the 18-hour drive to the Big Apple.

It isn’t, as they say, love at first sight. Harry sees Sally’s optimistic attitude about life as naïve and 
unrealistic. Sally, on the other hand, thinks Harry is obnoxious, depressing, and shallow. They disagree on almost everything, but their main point of divergence is their take on male-female friendships.

Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends.

Sally Albright: Why not?

Harry Burns: 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.

Harry and Sally don’t get along too well during their drive to New York, and they go their separate ways. Sally becomes a journalist, Harry becomes a political consultant, and throughout the movie they cross paths every few years. They date other people, and at one point Harry gets married to a frosty lawyer named Helen Hillson (Harley Kozak).

But since this is, after all, a romantic comedy, Ephron and Reiner know that a movie titled “When Harry Met Sally…” has to get the two leads to be together. But before they do, they want Harry, Sally, and their best friends Jess and Marie (Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher) to delve into the thorny real-life issues of adult relationships. As a result, Harry and Sally must undergo various trials, including failed romances, the aftermath of a spontaneous sexual encounter that ends badly, and their different outlooks on life and sex.

If the story arc of “When Harry Met Sally…” is somewhat predictable (or else it would not be a romantic comedy), the true genius is in the details of the story. Ephron’s depiction of Harry was based on director Rob Reiner, who was coping with his return to the dating scene after a divorce. His feelings and views on women are the basis for Harry’s sometimes cynical world view. Luckily, when Billy Crystal was cast in the role, he added many of his lines and character traits, making Harry funnier and more likeable. Ephron was also inspired by the friendship between Crystal and Reiner; she infuses her script with material she mined by observing the two men’s interactions during pre-production.

Nora Ephron also gives Meg Ryan some of the best comedic material of “America’s Sweetheart’s” career. Ephron based Sally Albright on herself and several of her friends. The character’s famous pickiness about food comes straight from the screenwriter’s personality. 

  “When Harry Met Sally…” is a crowd pleaser in every sense of the word. The movie highlights outstanding performances by its two leads and supporting actors Bruno Kirby (“City Slickers”) and Carrie Fisher (“Star Wars”).  It also features a great musical score arranged by Marc Shaiman and performed, in part, by a then little-known jazz pianist and singer from New Orleans, Harry Connick, Jr. It’s a funny, wry, and often heart-rending film; “When Harry Met Sally…” truly deserves its reputation as one of the best romantic movies of all time.

“When Harry Met Sally…” Blu-ray Specs

Video
  • ·        Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (32.00 Mbps)
  • ·        Resolution: 1080p
  • ·        Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
  • ·        Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1


Audio
  • ·        English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
  • ·        Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
  • ·        French: DTS 5.1
  • ·        Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0
  • ·        Italian: DTS 5.1
  • ·        German: DTS 5.1
  • ·        Russian: DTS 5.1
  • ·        Spanish: DTS 5.1
  • ·        Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
  • ·        Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0

Note: Japanese available when the menu is set to Japanese

Subtitles
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      English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German, Cantonese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin (Traditional), Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish

Discs
  • ·        50GB Blu-ray Disc
  • ·        Single disc (1 BD)
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Playback
·        Region A
·        Rated: R (Restricted)
·        Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
·        Blu-ray Release Date: January 1, 2014
·        Run Time: 96 minutes
 

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