1989
Starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby
Directed by Rob Reiner
110 minutes
In Her Words:
A woman and a man become friends over the years and wonder if their relationship can survive romance.
In Other Words:
If you have ever been in a shopping mall early in the morning, after the mall itself is open but long before the stores raise their overpriced, marked-down gates; and long before the food court tempts people who should have stopped courting food a long time ago; surely you have seen Walkers. Walkers are the elderly folk who congregate inside the mall to for their daily, climate-controlled walk before the Abercrombie & Fitch fires up the turbines and starts pumping Eau de Unicorn Carcass throughout the whole building. Seeing Walkers is humbling, because it reminds me that someday I might be the guy who sings “Seasons in the Sun” to the headless Banana Republic mannequin.
Peppered throughout When Harry Met Sally… are documentary-style interviews of Walker Couples. I can only assume that the off-camera interviewer is dressed as a Piercing Pagoda to put the subjects at ease. Each of the Walker Couples tells the story of how fate brought them together.
The film opens with Walker Couple 1, the male half of which recounts having seen his wife in a restaurant fifty years prior, and he claimed, like a modern-day Nostradomus who had run out of good disasters to predict, that he would marry her. Throughout their entire segment, she says nothing at all, leading me to believe that she is either a mute or a hostage.
The year is 1977, and the feathered hair on Sally Albright’s (Ryan) head makes her look like Farrah Fawcett, if you mistook Farrah Fawcett for a Shrinky Dink. Sally is on the University of Chicago campus, which makes her the second-oldest-looking coed in the world, behind the man she just met, Harry Burns (Crystal), who looks like he’s a “person of interest” to Chris Hansen. Harry and Sally have agreed to share a driving excursion from Chicago to New York, and somewhere between the cities, they stop at a diner, where they discuss Sally’s days-of-the-week underpants, and how those underpants cost her a relationship. Harry can’t seem to establish a relationship, and I have to wonder if the root of his problem has something to do with months-of-the-year underpants. Regardless, Harry hits on Sally and she rejects him.
Walker Couple 2 were separated high school sweethearts who reconnected later in life. They were separated when her parents moved away. They never said why her parents moved away, but if you look at him, you kinda know why.
Fast-forward to 1982, when Sally sports the Dorothy Hamill look, if you mistook Dorothy Hamill for a blonde Shrinky Dink. She runs into Harry at an airport, and on the plane, he boasts that he is getting married. Sally is impressed with his monogamous ways. To celebrate, Harry hits on her again. Sally rejects him again. I sense a theme.
Walker Couple 3 were married decades prior, but later divorced. One day, at a mutual friend’s funeral, the man saw the woman, hit on her, and they soon remarried. Yes, nothing says, “Do me, baby!” like praying the Rosary over a corpse. The whole thing makes me want to take a shower.
Skip to 1987, when Harry and Sally meet yet again. This time, Sally’s hair is that frizzy, Nina Blackwood/Shrinky Dink style. They’re both lonesome losers, so they decide to be “just friends.” As if this film weren’t dialogue-heavy enough, more talking ensues; so much so that David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross is like a silent film by comparison.
The folks that make up Walker Couple 4 lived and worked near each other for years in New York City, but met by chance in Chicago, in a hotel elevator. She was overwhelmed that he would ride the elevator nine extra floors just to be with her. He should have taken the stairs. He could have used the exercise.
One day, Harry and Sally exchange recurring sex-dream stories. Harry dreams that he is in the Sex Olympics. Really. The notion that there might be Sex Olympics is okay with me. What is preposterous is that if the Sex Olympics actually existed, the United States would send Harry. In his dream, Harry receives a bad score from his mother, who is disguised as an East German judge. Once again, really. Sally’s dream isn’t worth mentioning. Trust me on this.
Walker Couple 5 were counselors at a Hitler Youth camp, and during the camp’s season-ending talent show, themed “Herr Today, Braun Tomorrow,” he goose-stepped his way into her heart. Okay, not really. They met at your garden-variety summer camp. But at that camp, she “… knew [about him] the way you know about a good melon.” He’s just decades-old produce now.
Finally comes the infamous scene where Sally fakes an orgasm in a deli to prove to Harry that he can’t tell when a woman fakes an orgasm. The first sign of trouble with this scene happens way back in the opening credits, where we learn the film is directed by the guy who found fame and fortune playing a character named Meathead. The next sign of trouble is that Meathead cast his real-life mother (Estelle Reiner) in the film. Once Meg is done faking a spectacle of herself in the deli, Estelle’s Older Woman Customer character leans over to a waiter and says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Is it a funny line? Absolutely. But would you want to watch your mother even pretend to desire an orgasm, fake or otherwise? Especially an orgasm triggered by corned beef on rye? It seems Reiner does.
NOTE: This marks the second scene in this film involving sex and mothers. One more scene like this and Reiner will win himself a free pair of Oedipal panties.
Walker Couple 6 is similar to Walker Couple 1 in that the man does all the talking. How is it that a remake can exist within the same film?
One night, Sally has a meltdown over an old boyfriend. She calls Harry for consoling, and Harry consoles the panties off her. This has ramifications. (Remember, it was 1989, when “friends with benefits” meant your bowling buddy had a fishing boat you could borrow.) The next morning, Sally is all post-orgasmic smiles and sunshine, and Harry looks like he is being audited by the IRS … while having his prostate checked. Faster than the Roadrunner can say “Beep Beep,” Harry is out the door.
Sally is scorned by this, and their relationship is dead until New Year’s Eve, when Harry wallows in endless, lonely, Mallomar-fueled self-pity. Then it hits him: he’s not only friends with Sally, he loves her. Inspired by his Eureka moment, he runs (not unlike a seven-year-old girl) to the hotel where Sally is attending a party. He professes his love for her and they kiss. Fade to … what?! Not fade to black?!
