Hi everybody, and welcome to Mark Overanalyses Film. Today I’ll be overanalysing 1989’s When Harry Met Sally.
When Harry Met Sally was directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron, and I think it is fair to say that it is the definitive modern romcom. When I was thinking about this podcast, I recalled a 2018 interview in The Guardian where intensity’s Christian Bale was asked if he’d ever do a romcom. He asked the interviewer if they’ve ever really enjoyed a romcom. The interviewer, blanking for a moment, eventually plumped for When Harry Met Sally. Bale rightly pointed out that that was some time ago. Now you might not agree with Christian Bale, or maybe you’re screaming The Kissing Booth or Crazy Rich Asians at the interviewer, but I think there is a point here. I enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook, Something’s Gotta Give, Set It Up, 500 Days Of Summer, Top Five, and Always Be My Maybe but none of them really come close to When Harry Met Sally in my view. So, what makes When Harry Met Sally so special? Why do I think it’s so much better than all these other romcoms? As I analyse the film, I’ll be thinking particularly about these things.
So, with that in mind, first, I’ll look at the fundamental features of the protagonist, and then I’ll go through the main story beats by looking at the sequences of the film. Then, I’ll talk about the main things I learned along the way.
Ok, so, without further ado, let’s get into the 5 Questions about the protagonist.
Q1: Whose story is it?
As my former tutor Mary Kate O’Flanagan pointed out, this film is called When Harry Met Sally, and not When Sally Met Harry, for a reason. Despite Sally being such a huge part of this film, Harry is the protagonist. This is because the change that the film’s end requires, and therefore the tension of the whole film, is Harry’s. The change that Harry undergoes defines the film, and therefore he is the protagonist.
Q2: What is his life dream?
Life dream here refers to what it is that the protagonist wants or is aiming to do when the film begins and the story has yet to properly start. I always find this one interesting in a film like this, because we spend our first 10 minutes with Harry when he’s significantly younger and significantly different in circumstance than in most of our film. I think the first act in this film is an amazing device by the way, as I’ll get into. Anyways, when we first meet Harry, he’s a young buck in his prime, and apparently something of a lady’s man. I think Harry is pretty much doing what he loves right here. Despite his ‘dark side’, he’s hitting on beautiful women left and right and enjoying being a young, carefree man. But of course, that won’t last.
Q3: What is his want?
Want here is what the character is trying to achieve in act II of the film, from the moment they really begin their journey until the moment they are at their most defeated. As such, it is a SMART goal, in that it is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. Now, a Want generally gives a film its shape, as it defines act II. You have a before, change of act II, and after. And the way it shapes a film is never clearer than in When Harry Met Sally, because Harry wants to be friends with Sally, even though he’s already said several times in Act I that that is not possible. And it really defines the film to my mind, as no discussion I’ve ever seen of this film has ever not included the question: Can a man and woman truly be friends?
Q4: What is his need?
Need is the human quality or piece of wisdom that the character lacks at the beginning of the story. Now, we can say that Harry needs to realise he’s in love with Sally, but that’s not very universal, unless all of us need to realise we’re in love with Sally. And I think most of us already know that we are. I think Harry probably needs to realise that love and friendship are not mutually exclusive, as I’ll discuss in greater detail throughout.
Q5: Does he get what he wants and/or what he needs?
So, what I was always unsure about personally with When Harry Met Sally is that it kinda argues that men and women cannot actually be friends! It does this by virtue of Harry’s want not being met when he and Sally sleep together at the end of Act II. Harry does however gets what he needs at the end: a mature romantic relationship based on the deep understanding of a close friendship. But in the film’s defense on this friendship note, the structure of the 3 acts is actually a development from nothing, to deep friends, to romantic partners.
Ok, now that I’ve attempted to answer the 5 key questions, let’s have a look at When Harry Met Sally’s sequences.
______________________________
The Sequences
There is normally, but not always, 8 sequences, or stages, in a film. A sequence is a combination of scenes that are tied together by having a single overriding dramatic question or tension, and they tend to be between 10 and 15 minutes in length. A good way to think about it is that every 10-15 minutes, the audience should be on some level asking themselves a different dramatic question.
Now, When Harry Met Sally is a great (and easy) film to study, because the sequences are almost never this clearly demarcated. This is done through the device of couples telling their stories. I’d like to talk about this device in detail later, but for now let me just point out that they always appear between the sequences, which is very handy for me! Also, act 1 has 2 sequences and both take place in discrete moments in the past. The sequences here just could not be clearer.
Anyways, let’s begin with Act I. The first sequence is generally ‘life as it is’, and even though this one takes place 10 years before our second and third acts, it very much sets up who these people are and what is to define their lives. But first: an elderly couple, who describe to someone just off camera how they met.
We then meet Harry, in what looks like a college courtyard, really going for it with a hot young thing he’s clearly been dating. Sally pulls up in a car and starts waiting, patiently at first, and then increasingly impatiently. Now, you can see the dynamic immediately here, can’t you? These two are our main characters. Which one needs to change by the end? Clearly Harry. After some more sickening displays of young affection, Harry finally gets in the car, and we’re off. These two get to know each other in a car trip to New York. And this shows immediately, to my mind, why When Harry Met Sally is When Harry Met Sally. I’ll talk about this more later, but we spend a lot of time with just these 2 characters talking, and it’s never boring.
And here we see how this dynamic works from the get-go. Sally is hyper-organised and proactive, Harry has a confident blase-ness about everything with a strange yet believable mix of being both incredibly perceptive and also a little eccentric. Their conversation about death just reminds me so much of the worst, most embarrassing ‘deep’ conversations from my college years.
We’re soon at a restaurant where they argue about whether or not Sally has had great sex with Sheldon the wonder shlong, and then Harry really reveals himself. After all his romantic embracing minutes ago, he is now very directly propositioning Sally, his girlfriend’s friend. Just a class act all the way. Although I have to say I also used to read the last page of books first. But I did it cos I found it interesting to think about how the book would get there. Who’d have thought I’d someday have a podcast about story structure?! Regardless, this leads to the first mention of the critical discussion of the film: Sally says they are just going to be friends, before Harry ‘explains’ that men and women can’t be friends. Whether because she’s convinced, or more likely cos she’s given up reasoning with this guy, Sally says it’s too bad they’re not going to be friends, cos he’s the only person she knows in New York.
At that, we see these two arrive in the city and part ways. It’s worth noting here that they’re essentially saying goodbye forever, but there’s a slight awkwardness. Cos while they might not actually like each other at this stage, maybe just maybe there’s a vague sense that they have some kind of connection.
But at that, we have another old couple, and we cut to 5 years later, our sequence II. This time, it’s Sally going to town on a strikingly good looking partner, and Harry ends up waiting on them. You’ll notice though that Harry is not quite the average person that Sally is. While she waited and cleared her throat, Harry leans in a little too close to the kissing couple until Sally notices him. So, Harry and Sally run into each other again and we wonder some variation of the question: “Are these two ready to be friends yet?” On the plane, we again see Harry’s unique combination of quirks. He looms behind Sally, asks her if she looked this good in Chicago, and can’t remember basic details about her and his ex. And yet, he can tell how long she’s been going out with Joe from a fundamental understanding of dating behaviour. He also talks with great awareness in explaining his reasons for getting out of the game and getting married. Now, I think this is subtly important as well. He tells Sally that he’s fallen madly in love, but the sum total of the information that we get about this incredible lady is “Helen Hilson, she’s a lawyer, she’s keeping her name.” He then immediately describes how he was sick of dating. Keep in mind how this is a mirror image of our climax, which is defined by Harry’s detailed description of Sally’s personal foibles followed by his declaration of enthusiasm for their future to come. It’s safe to say Harry changes in the next hour and 10 minutes, and it’s because of Sally. But Harry hasn’t changed yet of course, so he’s soon yet again asking Sally out to dinner despite being engaged. He suggests dinner as friends, then is reminded that men and women can’t be friends, then wonders where that leaves him and Sally. The clear deduction is of course that if they can’t be romantically involved and they can’t be friends, it’s ‘nowhere’. And yet, despite himself and his own theory, the one place throughout this film that Harry cannot stay is not in Sally’s life. But for now, Sally says goodbye once again. These two are now in romantic relationships, and out of each other’s lives. Theoretically, this is a done deal, so we’re really going to have to go on a journey for that not to be the case, and so we end Act I and enter Act II.
First of course, we have another couple, before we enter our first Act II sequence, Sequence III: the first attempts to solve the problem. Now you might recall that this sequence is normally defined by the move from the protagonist initially rejecting the call to finally accepting it. And so, when we ended act I, these two went their separate ways after Harry redoubled his conviction that men and women couldn’t be friends. Then, we have our “What’s the plan” scene, the scene at the beginning of act II which basically tells us what act II is going to look like. Actually it feels like we have a couple, because we check in on these two indivildually first, and then together. So, we see that Sally is going to insist that she’s really fine about breaking up with Joe. Then, we see that Harry has been decimated by his wife leaving him. Then, we see these 2 come back into each other’s lives and their burgeoning friendship. It’s worth noting though that scenes also suggest that work and family are simply not going to factor into this film. All there is in this world are very confused well-to-do 30-somethings trying to figure out how to be in a relationship.
Anyways, these two meet in a bookshop and they soon get to talking. And you’ll notice that Harry, having been humbled, is actually listening now. Y’know, almost like a real friend. And so, they’re soon rambling down an incredibly romantic New York in Autumn path. And here something interesting happens. First, Harry actually apologises, but then: Sally asks Harry if he’d like to go to dinner some time. Now, it’s easy to overlook this but as the writer and my former tutor Mary Kate O’Flanagan so rightly pointed out, this is Sally asking Harry out. And Harry totally misses it. He responds by asking if they’re becoming friends, and you can see Sally reacting in the moment to what is tantamount to at least some kind of a rejection. But here we end our sequence III as is typically done. 12 minutes ago, Harry resolved that men and women couldn’t be friends, now the protagonist accepts the call by taking their first unconscious step towards their need. Harry is going to be friends with a woman.
And so we enter sequence IV now, the greater attempts to solve the problem. And we have our new tension, some version of the question: “Will these two become more than friends?” We have a montage of these two hanging out together, which tells us that some amount of time has passed and they’ve become fast friends. No doubt bonding over their shared terrible takes on the film Casablanca. It’s worth noting here that Nora Ephron really enjoys referring to classic films. In Sleepless In Seattle, An Affair to Remember plays a prominent part. Here, they talk about Casablanca, but two potential lovers talking over the phone on a split screen is a direct reference to another Ingrid Bergman classic, Indiscreet. We see these two discuss their dreams and goof around. But of course this can’t last forever, so we soon have a potential spanner in the works. Harry asks Sally if she’d like to go to the cinema with him, which certainly has date undertones, and Sally has to say no… because she has an actual date. And again, paying close attention to Sally in this ‘Pecan Pie’ scene, it’s clear that there’s a moment, a flicker, where she’s upset that Harry thinks it’s great that she’s dating. But then she turns her back and immediately puts up her defences again. It’s really good stuff by Meg Ryan.
But while Harry isn’t realising yet, he is beginning to experiment with his need. Encouraged by Sally, he does start dating again. But while he’s too emotionally fragile to connect with a woman, he seems to have zero issues sleeping with them. So this feels like some of the old Harry, or the young Harry, coming out. In the cages, he brags to Jess about his sexual prowess, but he also highlights that what is special about his relationship with Sally is that he doesn’t have to lie because he’s not just focused on bedding her. He can just be himself. Just imagine if you could actually sleep with someone and also really be yourself?
But Harry’s bragging comes right before the most famous scene in the film: the restaurant orgasm. Now, Harry is a confident man. He’s got it all figured out, and he really needs some humbling from time to time. Actually Harry and Sally quite remind me a bit of Rochester and Jane Eyre in this way. So, here, right as we approach the midpoint, Harry has a humbling experience. He knows, of course, that a woman has never faked an orgasm having sex with him, until Sally goes to great lengths to plant a seed of doubt in his mind. “I’ll have what she’s having” is one of the most famous lines in cinema history, but this scene is at least as much about Harry eating some humble pie.
And so, at that, we have our midpoint. The holidays are upon our main characters, and Harry takes Sally out for New Years. And there’s a lot of little touches here, but the scene is defined by that wonderful shot as the two dance cheek to cheek and we see both of their faces grappling with being confronted with the uncomfortable tension they’ve been ignoring all this time. They abruptly rush outside before the countdown is complete. As everyone around them kisses, they have a moment of uncertainty. They laugh it off and wish each other a happy new year, but the romantic feelings bubbling underneath all of this have shown themselves clearly for the first time. The moment Harry closes his eyes, succumbing slightly to these feelings of genuine tenderness with a woman is the first conscious move towards his need. And so, this is our midpoint, and it’s worth noting just how clearly it foreshadows our climax later. So, will they become more than friends? No. Not yet at least. So, tension resolved, we leave sequence IV and enter sequence V: The Honeymoon Sequence.
Sequence V is the honeymoon sequence because the character has made a move towards their need and is generally rewarded in some way for it. So Harry brought Sally out for New Years, and made at least some kind of commitment to her, and then felt an undeniable romantic chemistry. So, what are they doing when we next meet them? They’re going on a date. Unfortunately, these two have still not mastered what it is they need, so it’s a double date, and they’re meant to be dating other people. So our tension isn’t “Is Harry and Sally’s date going to work out?”, but some version of “Will Harry and/or Sally start dating Marie and/or Jess?” And I love this whole sequence. Jess and Marie’s trepidation before, them realising that they really click, and the two of them rushing off without as much as a pinch of subtlety. The whole thing is so well done, so well written. And at that, this particularly short honeymoon period is over. Harry and Sally are still single, with Jess and Marie clearly going to date each other.
And I think in a film like When Harry Met Sally, the brevity of this honeymoon sequence really makes sense. As I’ll talk about later, the only thing standing in the way of Harry and Sally is Harry and Sally, which is the real, rare genius of this film. With that in mind, if the characters are acting in accordance with their need for too long, it’s just not going to work. They’re going to need to be drawn away from it again. And so, we now enter Sequence VI: the bridge from the honeymoon period to the low point.
And only in this bridge to the low point could you find yourself singing Surrey with a Fringe on Top in front of Ira! Harry and Sally go shopping together, and Harry runs into Helen (and Ira). This soon leads to Harry and Sally having their first real fight as grown ups now. I really like the fact though that this fight is not “the” fight. It is not the reason they might not get together. Rather, they quickly make up. But the truths it raises about them not moving on likely leads to our next scene: where both are now dating again. Again, they’re not dating each other, but notice the progression. In sequence III, Harry was devastated. In sequence IV, he was sleeping around but unable to really date. In sequence V, he went on a double date with Sally, and now in sequence VI, he’s actually seeing someone. This gives the story a sense of development and momentum, and shows both a movement towards his need whilst also posing a problem for it.
But this sequence is all about our heroes finally confronting their exes. It begins with Harry meeting Helen, and it ends with Sally learning that Joe is getting married. And so, Sally calls Harry upset, one thing leads to another, and they end up sleeping together. There’s a few things worth noting in this all important scene I think. This film is almost exactly 90 minutes from start to finish, and it’s tight, but it’s also measured. It feels leisurely. And I think part of the reason for that is that the scenes are lengthy. Even for the late 80s, these scenes have unusually few cuts. This really allows space for the sense of this pair’s relationship, but I think here it’s a slight problem. Sally answers the door, wailing. And from there, the next 3 minutes play out pretty much in real time, as most of the film’s scenes do. But this scene has to go from Harry arriving at the door to comfort his upset friend to these two long time friends sleeping together. I think most films would have a couple of cuts here to allow the sense of passing time and build up to something. But that would feel so out of whack with the rest of this film, so they have to do all that progression in real time. Given the circumstances, I think they do quite an impressive job but I do think it remains a little awkward.
Anyways, Harry and Sally end up sleeping together. And again you might notice that it’s Sally who leans in to kiss Harry. She’s the one who is ready for this to happen. But Harry, despite sleeping with her, is not ready. So, he does his Harry thing. He holds her for about 30 seconds, and then doesn’t quite manage to stay over all night. He leaves awkwardly, and when they meet for dinner later, the pitter patter of their back and forth has completely gone missing. Now it’s worth noting here that during their earlier argument, Harry says Sally never lets anything bother her and Sally says Harry has to find a way to not express every feeling that he has the moment he has them. Well, this has happened because Sally’s facade finally came down, and this distancing is happening because Harry, mentally shifting Sally from one category to another, is now no longer expressing himself. He feels suffocated. Sex has ruined their friendship, which has answered the central tension of Act II, and so we enter Act III.
Act III has a false resolution and a true resolution. And so in sequence VII, we find our potential lovers separated with the real risk that they will just drift apart. But we need some kind of confrontation because there’s been so much left unsaid between these two. So, it’s a good thing that Jess and Marie are getting married, which brings Harry and Sally back into each other’s orbit. And there’s a bunch of stuff here: first of all, Harry comes over and tries to get into their old groove. Suddenly he’s all chat again. Second, he’s back to being impatient and arrogant. But third, when Sally finally slaps him, it seems to be a wake up call. The film really holds for a beat on his face. And the next time we will see Harry, it’s like he’s slowly woken up. He begins calling Sally, begging for her to just talk to him. And eventually, after our rule of 3 three attempts of increasingly pathetic messages, Sally answers. And again we see that Harry being humbled leads him to where he needs to go. He actually apologises now and Sally is really shaken by it. But she’s not won back, not yet. Sorry is not enough. And when Harry asks her to go to the New Year’s party, Sally, as so often happens in our Sequence VII False Resolution, hits the nail on the head. All this time, she’s been Harry’s consolation prize. He’s not able to really move on, grow up, and fall in love, so he’s kept this amazing woman around to fill a role in his life that he needs. And so we have this question raised again: Romantic partners, friends, or nothing? And right now, Sally has put Harry into the one area he cannot live with: back where he was in act I: nothing.
And so with 8 minutes left, we enter our final sequence, the True Resolution with some version of the question: “Will Harry realise he loves Sally and win her back?” At home, lonely and depressed, Harry tries to lie to himself that this is fine. Meanwhile, Sally is at the party but would rather be at home. Harry walks the streets and as he does so, he spots a couple. And we linger on his sad face. Now, he’s about to make his change, so it’s great that the film makes this subtle callback to “I spy a family”, the phrase that triggered Sally’s realisation that she needed more in life. Harry now spies a couple and it makes him realise that he needs more. The foreshadowing really gives this a little more narrative heft. But something that I really needed the screenplay to fully understand happens next. Harry looks up at a monument, and it cues a flashback. What I didn’t realise is that this is Washington Square, which is the place where Sally dropped him off when they first met. And so it’s a reminder of the first time he and Sally left each other’s lives. As he recalls him telling her that they can never be friends and her saying that that’s a pity, cos he’s the only person she knows in New York, the penny finally drops. They can’t be friends. And he can’t be without her, so there’s only one option left. So it’s a good thing he realises he loves everything about her. He runs to the party that she is just leaving. And he tells her that he loves her, but she’s not convinced. So, Harry convinces her, in maybe the single most romcom speech that ever did romcom. But of course, the difference between this and so many copycats is that this is entirely earned. The whole point is that by the time they have their happy ever after kiss and epilogue, these two people know each other so well and care for each other so deeply. The whole point is, as Sally succinctly puts it, “Anyway, it’s about old friends.”
Epilogue
When Harry Met Sally is probably not my all time favourite romcom — I’m a sucker for the old screwballs — but I do think it is my favourite, and the definitive, modern romcom. And I’d like to talk about why that is.
The first thing I’d like to talk about is the use of the couples throughout, cos I think it’s really clever. First of all, the use of these couples really helps to give this romcom a sense of romantic comedy ultimacy. This is not just a story about two people falling in love, this is a story about how two people meet and fall in love. As tight as this story is, we’re told no fewer than 8 stories of romance throughout. Second of all, it really helps to pace and structure the film. As I said earlier, these couples appear between the sequences here. They appear in minutes 1, 14, 22, 34, 50, 56, and at the end minute 91. Sometimes I refer to the typical sequences in films as stages, and here these really clearly demarcate the stages of When Harry Met Sally. There’s a big leap between each of sequences 1 to 4 especially, and these cut aways allow a sense of time passing, and of space for the story to breathe.
But also, something that totally passed me by for years is how these canned little stories relate thematically to the various stages of the film. The first couple we see tell us a story about a man who knew immediately that his wife was the one. Which provides a sense of irony as we see Harry spend 18 hours not getting on with Sally before saying goodbye to her for 5 years. The next couple we see met each other again after years apart and still felt the same way about each other immediately. Which is exactly what happens to Harry and Sally in our 2nd sequence. Our 3rd couple talks about having had a relationship previously and then coming back together again after the husband’s divorce from another woman. This time it lasted. As we enter act II, this sounds familiar. The 4th sequence’s couple grew up on top of each other, yet somehow missed each other for years. At the midpoint, when Harry and Sally slow dance and they become consciously aware of this romantic chemistry, we have a couple where the woman conveys that since of ‘just knowing’. As a midpoint, it also foreshadows Harry’s climactic speech. Finally then, we have another couple, who speak about an arranged marriage working out after the husband overcame his doubts. This is right after an arranged double date and right before Harry faces his greatest doubt at the low point.
But it’s worth noting that a last couple at the end of act II were cut. It’s almost certainly because we don’t really want to cut away from our story at this stage. But also, every time I see this movie, there’s a little surprise when I first hear Harry and Sally start talking offscreen. It’s been 35 minutes since we’ve last seen this device, so even though it’s been so built into the film, we’ve still been given enough time to forget about it, and it is such a pleasant pay-off to realise that the last couple we’re going to see tell us their great love story is the 2 people we’ve been rooting for this whole time.
And on that note, let me end on the single most important thing: this couple. As I said at the beginning, I think this is the definitive romcom. So it’s worth investigating that concept for a moment. Let’s say a romantic comedy is, more or less, the funny story of two people falling in love. There’s a lot of variation, but there is always this tension of “Will these two people end up together?” So, we always have two people, and the question “will they end up together?”
Bearing only that first part in mind for a moment, I think it’s worth noting how well defined and characterised Harry and Sally are as romantic leads. In your head can you think of Harry and Sally in a variety of situations? Together or apart? I certainly feel like I can. Now, think of any other pair of leads from any other romantic comedy in the last 30 years. Can you picture those leads together and/or apart in any situation outside the film? Imagine Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell having a 5 minute conversation scene where it is just the two of them and there’s nothing in particular to play off or artificially add tension. I really can’t. Now I particularly have a bone to pick with Richard Curtis romcoms, but imagine any romcom that uses a “the two leads are getting on” montage, and insisting that you see a 5 minute conversation scene instead of that montage.
I think it’s pretty hard to imagine for most. Which is strange, cos I would think the question of “Can the relationship between 2 characters alone provide an engine for scenes over and over again?” should be one of the fundamental questions of any story with two leads. Yet, so many romcom leads are really flat, really dull, and can only be supported for a limited runtime through charismatic performers and artificial and superficial tensions. I think this is why there is such a preponderance of ‘the preposterous lie that must be maintained for no good reason’ or ‘a ridiculously terrible partner that they lead is with’ for, again, no good reason.
As Steve Kaplan on film courage points out, bad romcoms are about how two people can ‘get’ together. Good romcoms are about how two people can ‘stay’ together. Because the tension of real life romance is rarely how can we get together. It’s usually how can we, or should we, overcome issues and differences to stay together. How much more interesting is that second question to answer than the first?
Harry and Sally spend this whole film together, with nothing but their own uncertainties, doubts, insecurities, and blind spots keeping them apart. The film has roughly 40 scenes, and over half of those scenes feature pretty much only Harry and Sally. There are few other obstacles. Just these two people, and the question “Can they or should they end up together?” It is the purest form of romcom.
Johan Cruyff famously said “Football is simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.” When you remove all the other obstacles and boil the romcom down to its most base form, there’s nowhere to hide — there’s no crutch to lean on. When I watch Harry and Sally, I feel like these two could have a hundred scenes together, because all the tension and life comes from these two characters’ interactions with each other. These characters are actually characterful. And this also makes When Harry Met Sally genuinely romantic, because when these two get together, it’s not because they’ve cleared up a hugely coincidental misunderstanding or because they’ve had their first actual honest, human-like interaction. The realisation at the end isn’t “Wait, my current boyfriend is actually cartoonishly villainous” or “Wait, it only looked like she was kissing that other guy” or any other such nonsense. Harry’s realisation is that he knows everything about Sally, and the only thing scarier than really committing again is the thought of not having his best friend in his life anymore.
Now, I’ve had a go here at a bunch of romcoms here, because I get frustrated with them, but in their defense, what the creators of When Harry Met Sally have done is exceptionally difficult. And so, to paraphrase the great Johan Cruyff, I’m left thinking that romcoms are simple, but making a pure, genuinely romantic comedy is the hardest thing there is.
This has been Mark Overanalyses Film on When Harry Met Sally. In the next episode, I’ll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Blade Runner. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, rate, follow, recommend, and whatever else it is that’s good for this kind of thing! A special thanks to Mary Kate O’Flanagan who taught me everything I know about film, including these methods. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourselves, and see you soon.
When Harry Met Sally was directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron, and I think it is fair to say that it is the definitive modern romcom. When I was thinking about this podcast, I recalled a 2018 interview in The Guardian where intensity’s Christian Bale was asked if he’d ever do a romcom. He asked the interviewer if they’ve ever really enjoyed a romcom. The interviewer, blanking for a moment, eventually plumped for When Harry Met Sally. Bale rightly pointed out that that was some time ago. Now you might not agree with Christian Bale, or maybe you’re screaming The Kissing Booth or Crazy Rich Asians at the interviewer, but I think there is a point here. I enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook, Something’s Gotta Give, Set It Up, 500 Days Of Summer, Top Five, and Always Be My Maybe but none of them really come close to When Harry Met Sally in my view. So, what makes When Harry Met Sally so special? Why do I think it’s so much better than all these other romcoms? As I analyse the film, I’ll be thinking particularly about these things.
So, with that in mind, first, I’ll look at the fundamental features of the protagonist, and then I’ll go through the main story beats by looking at the sequences of the film. Then, I’ll talk about the main things I learned along the way.
Ok, so, without further ado, let’s get into the 5 Questions about the protagonist.
Q1: Whose story is it?
As my former tutor Mary Kate O’Flanagan pointed out, this film is called When Harry Met Sally, and not When Sally Met Harry, for a reason. Despite Sally being such a huge part of this film, Harry is the protagonist. This is because the change that the film’s end requires, and therefore the tension of the whole film, is Harry’s. The change that Harry undergoes defines the film, and therefore he is the protagonist.
Q2: What is his life dream?
Life dream here refers to what it is that the protagonist wants or is aiming to do when the film begins and the story has yet to properly start. I always find this one interesting in a film like this, because we spend our first 10 minutes with Harry when he’s significantly younger and significantly different in circumstance than in most of our film. I think the first act in this film is an amazing device by the way, as I’ll get into. Anyways, when we first meet Harry, he’s a young buck in his prime, and apparently something of a lady’s man. I think Harry is pretty much doing what he loves right here. Despite his ‘dark side’, he’s hitting on beautiful women left and right and enjoying being a young, carefree man. But of course, that won’t last.
Q3: What is his want?
Want here is what the character is trying to achieve in act II of the film, from the moment they really begin their journey until the moment they are at their most defeated. As such, it is a SMART goal, in that it is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. Now, a Want generally gives a film its shape, as it defines act II. You have a before, change of act II, and after. And the way it shapes a film is never clearer than in When Harry Met Sally, because Harry wants to be friends with Sally, even though he’s already said several times in Act I that that is not possible. And it really defines the film to my mind, as no discussion I’ve ever seen of this film has ever not included the question: Can a man and woman truly be friends?
Q4: What is his need?
Need is the human quality or piece of wisdom that the character lacks at the beginning of the story. Now, we can say that Harry needs to realise he’s in love with Sally, but that’s not very universal, unless all of us need to realise we’re in love with Sally. And I think most of us already know that we are. I think Harry probably needs to realise that love and friendship are not mutually exclusive, as I’ll discuss in greater detail throughout.
Q5: Does he get what he wants and/or what he needs?
So, what I was always unsure about personally with When Harry Met Sally is that it kinda argues that men and women cannot actually be friends! It does this by virtue of Harry’s want not being met when he and Sally sleep together at the end of Act II. Harry does however gets what he needs at the end: a mature romantic relationship based on the deep understanding of a close friendship. But in the film’s defense on this friendship note, the structure of the 3 acts is actually a development from nothing, to deep friends, to romantic partners.
Ok, now that I’ve attempted to answer the 5 key questions, let’s have a look at When Harry Met Sally’s sequences.
______________________________
The Sequences
There is normally, but not always, 8 sequences, or stages, in a film. A sequence is a combination of scenes that are tied together by having a single overriding dramatic question or tension, and they tend to be between 10 and 15 minutes in length. A good way to think about it is that every 10-15 minutes, the audience should be on some level asking themselves a different dramatic question.
Now, When Harry Met Sally is a great (and easy) film to study, because the sequences are almost never this clearly demarcated. This is done through the device of couples telling their stories. I’d like to talk about this device in detail later, but for now let me just point out that they always appear between the sequences, which is very handy for me! Also, act 1 has 2 sequences and both take place in discrete moments in the past. The sequences here just could not be clearer.
Anyways, let’s begin with Act I. The first sequence is generally ‘life as it is’, and even though this one takes place 10 years before our second and third acts, it very much sets up who these people are and what is to define their lives. But first: an elderly couple, who describe to someone just off camera how they met.
We then meet Harry, in what looks like a college courtyard, really going for it with a hot young thing he’s clearly been dating. Sally pulls up in a car and starts waiting, patiently at first, and then increasingly impatiently. Now, you can see the dynamic immediately here, can’t you? These two are our main characters. Which one needs to change by the end? Clearly Harry. After some more sickening displays of young affection, Harry finally gets in the car, and we’re off. These two get to know each other in a car trip to New York. And this shows immediately, to my mind, why When Harry Met Sally is When Harry Met Sally. I’ll talk about this more later, but we spend a lot of time with just these 2 characters talking, and it’s never boring.
And here we see how this dynamic works from the get-go. Sally is hyper-organised and proactive, Harry has a confident blase-ness about everything with a strange yet believable mix of being both incredibly perceptive and also a little eccentric. Their conversation about death just reminds me so much of the worst, most embarrassing ‘deep’ conversations from my college years.
We’re soon at a restaurant where they argue about whether or not Sally has had great sex with Sheldon the wonder shlong, and then Harry really reveals himself. After all his romantic embracing minutes ago, he is now very directly propositioning Sally, his girlfriend’s friend. Just a class act all the way. Although I have to say I also used to read the last page of books first. But I did it cos I found it interesting to think about how the book would get there. Who’d have thought I’d someday have a podcast about story structure?! Regardless, this leads to the first mention of the critical discussion of the film: Sally says they are just going to be friends, before Harry ‘explains’ that men and women can’t be friends. Whether because she’s convinced, or more likely cos she’s given up reasoning with this guy, Sally says it’s too bad they’re not going to be friends, cos he’s the only person she knows in New York.
At that, we see these two arrive in the city and part ways. It’s worth noting here that they’re essentially saying goodbye forever, but there’s a slight awkwardness. Cos while they might not actually like each other at this stage, maybe just maybe there’s a vague sense that they have some kind of connection.
But at that, we have another old couple, and we cut to 5 years later, our sequence II. This time, it’s Sally going to town on a strikingly good looking partner, and Harry ends up waiting on them. You’ll notice though that Harry is not quite the average person that Sally is. While she waited and cleared her throat, Harry leans in a little too close to the kissing couple until Sally notices him. So, Harry and Sally run into each other again and we wonder some variation of the question: “Are these two ready to be friends yet?” On the plane, we again see Harry’s unique combination of quirks. He looms behind Sally, asks her if she looked this good in Chicago, and can’t remember basic details about her and his ex. And yet, he can tell how long she’s been going out with Joe from a fundamental understanding of dating behaviour. He also talks with great awareness in explaining his reasons for getting out of the game and getting married. Now, I think this is subtly important as well. He tells Sally that he’s fallen madly in love, but the sum total of the information that we get about this incredible lady is “Helen Hilson, she’s a lawyer, she’s keeping her name.” He then immediately describes how he was sick of dating. Keep in mind how this is a mirror image of our climax, which is defined by Harry’s detailed description of Sally’s personal foibles followed by his declaration of enthusiasm for their future to come. It’s safe to say Harry changes in the next hour and 10 minutes, and it’s because of Sally. But Harry hasn’t changed yet of course, so he’s soon yet again asking Sally out to dinner despite being engaged. He suggests dinner as friends, then is reminded that men and women can’t be friends, then wonders where that leaves him and Sally. The clear deduction is of course that if they can’t be romantically involved and they can’t be friends, it’s ‘nowhere’. And yet, despite himself and his own theory, the one place throughout this film that Harry cannot stay is not in Sally’s life. But for now, Sally says goodbye once again. These two are now in romantic relationships, and out of each other’s lives. Theoretically, this is a done deal, so we’re really going to have to go on a journey for that not to be the case, and so we end Act I and enter Act II.
First of course, we have another couple, before we enter our first Act II sequence, Sequence III: the first attempts to solve the problem. Now you might recall that this sequence is normally defined by the move from the protagonist initially rejecting the call to finally accepting it. And so, when we ended act I, these two went their separate ways after Harry redoubled his conviction that men and women couldn’t be friends. Then, we have our “What’s the plan” scene, the scene at the beginning of act II which basically tells us what act II is going to look like. Actually it feels like we have a couple, because we check in on these two indivildually first, and then together. So, we see that Sally is going to insist that she’s really fine about breaking up with Joe. Then, we see that Harry has been decimated by his wife leaving him. Then, we see these 2 come back into each other’s lives and their burgeoning friendship. It’s worth noting though that scenes also suggest that work and family are simply not going to factor into this film. All there is in this world are very confused well-to-do 30-somethings trying to figure out how to be in a relationship.
Anyways, these two meet in a bookshop and they soon get to talking. And you’ll notice that Harry, having been humbled, is actually listening now. Y’know, almost like a real friend. And so, they’re soon rambling down an incredibly romantic New York in Autumn path. And here something interesting happens. First, Harry actually apologises, but then: Sally asks Harry if he’d like to go to dinner some time. Now, it’s easy to overlook this but as the writer and my former tutor Mary Kate O’Flanagan so rightly pointed out, this is Sally asking Harry out. And Harry totally misses it. He responds by asking if they’re becoming friends, and you can see Sally reacting in the moment to what is tantamount to at least some kind of a rejection. But here we end our sequence III as is typically done. 12 minutes ago, Harry resolved that men and women couldn’t be friends, now the protagonist accepts the call by taking their first unconscious step towards their need. Harry is going to be friends with a woman.
And so we enter sequence IV now, the greater attempts to solve the problem. And we have our new tension, some version of the question: “Will these two become more than friends?” We have a montage of these two hanging out together, which tells us that some amount of time has passed and they’ve become fast friends. No doubt bonding over their shared terrible takes on the film Casablanca. It’s worth noting here that Nora Ephron really enjoys referring to classic films. In Sleepless In Seattle, An Affair to Remember plays a prominent part. Here, they talk about Casablanca, but two potential lovers talking over the phone on a split screen is a direct reference to another Ingrid Bergman classic, Indiscreet. We see these two discuss their dreams and goof around. But of course this can’t last forever, so we soon have a potential spanner in the works. Harry asks Sally if she’d like to go to the cinema with him, which certainly has date undertones, and Sally has to say no… because she has an actual date. And again, paying close attention to Sally in this ‘Pecan Pie’ scene, it’s clear that there’s a moment, a flicker, where she’s upset that Harry thinks it’s great that she’s dating. But then she turns her back and immediately puts up her defences again. It’s really good stuff by Meg Ryan.
But while Harry isn’t realising yet, he is beginning to experiment with his need. Encouraged by Sally, he does start dating again. But while he’s too emotionally fragile to connect with a woman, he seems to have zero issues sleeping with them. So this feels like some of the old Harry, or the young Harry, coming out. In the cages, he brags to Jess about his sexual prowess, but he also highlights that what is special about his relationship with Sally is that he doesn’t have to lie because he’s not just focused on bedding her. He can just be himself. Just imagine if you could actually sleep with someone and also really be yourself?
But Harry’s bragging comes right before the most famous scene in the film: the restaurant orgasm. Now, Harry is a confident man. He’s got it all figured out, and he really needs some humbling from time to time. Actually Harry and Sally quite remind me a bit of Rochester and Jane Eyre in this way. So, here, right as we approach the midpoint, Harry has a humbling experience. He knows, of course, that a woman has never faked an orgasm having sex with him, until Sally goes to great lengths to plant a seed of doubt in his mind. “I’ll have what she’s having” is one of the most famous lines in cinema history, but this scene is at least as much about Harry eating some humble pie.
And so, at that, we have our midpoint. The holidays are upon our main characters, and Harry takes Sally out for New Years. And there’s a lot of little touches here, but the scene is defined by that wonderful shot as the two dance cheek to cheek and we see both of their faces grappling with being confronted with the uncomfortable tension they’ve been ignoring all this time. They abruptly rush outside before the countdown is complete. As everyone around them kisses, they have a moment of uncertainty. They laugh it off and wish each other a happy new year, but the romantic feelings bubbling underneath all of this have shown themselves clearly for the first time. The moment Harry closes his eyes, succumbing slightly to these feelings of genuine tenderness with a woman is the first conscious move towards his need. And so, this is our midpoint, and it’s worth noting just how clearly it foreshadows our climax later. So, will they become more than friends? No. Not yet at least. So, tension resolved, we leave sequence IV and enter sequence V: The Honeymoon Sequence.
Sequence V is the honeymoon sequence because the character has made a move towards their need and is generally rewarded in some way for it. So Harry brought Sally out for New Years, and made at least some kind of commitment to her, and then felt an undeniable romantic chemistry. So, what are they doing when we next meet them? They’re going on a date. Unfortunately, these two have still not mastered what it is they need, so it’s a double date, and they’re meant to be dating other people. So our tension isn’t “Is Harry and Sally’s date going to work out?”, but some version of “Will Harry and/or Sally start dating Marie and/or Jess?” And I love this whole sequence. Jess and Marie’s trepidation before, them realising that they really click, and the two of them rushing off without as much as a pinch of subtlety. The whole thing is so well done, so well written. And at that, this particularly short honeymoon period is over. Harry and Sally are still single, with Jess and Marie clearly going to date each other.
And I think in a film like When Harry Met Sally, the brevity of this honeymoon sequence really makes sense. As I’ll talk about later, the only thing standing in the way of Harry and Sally is Harry and Sally, which is the real, rare genius of this film. With that in mind, if the characters are acting in accordance with their need for too long, it’s just not going to work. They’re going to need to be drawn away from it again. And so, we now enter Sequence VI: the bridge from the honeymoon period to the low point.
And only in this bridge to the low point could you find yourself singing Surrey with a Fringe on Top in front of Ira! Harry and Sally go shopping together, and Harry runs into Helen (and Ira). This soon leads to Harry and Sally having their first real fight as grown ups now. I really like the fact though that this fight is not “the” fight. It is not the reason they might not get together. Rather, they quickly make up. But the truths it raises about them not moving on likely leads to our next scene: where both are now dating again. Again, they’re not dating each other, but notice the progression. In sequence III, Harry was devastated. In sequence IV, he was sleeping around but unable to really date. In sequence V, he went on a double date with Sally, and now in sequence VI, he’s actually seeing someone. This gives the story a sense of development and momentum, and shows both a movement towards his need whilst also posing a problem for it.
But this sequence is all about our heroes finally confronting their exes. It begins with Harry meeting Helen, and it ends with Sally learning that Joe is getting married. And so, Sally calls Harry upset, one thing leads to another, and they end up sleeping together. There’s a few things worth noting in this all important scene I think. This film is almost exactly 90 minutes from start to finish, and it’s tight, but it’s also measured. It feels leisurely. And I think part of the reason for that is that the scenes are lengthy. Even for the late 80s, these scenes have unusually few cuts. This really allows space for the sense of this pair’s relationship, but I think here it’s a slight problem. Sally answers the door, wailing. And from there, the next 3 minutes play out pretty much in real time, as most of the film’s scenes do. But this scene has to go from Harry arriving at the door to comfort his upset friend to these two long time friends sleeping together. I think most films would have a couple of cuts here to allow the sense of passing time and build up to something. But that would feel so out of whack with the rest of this film, so they have to do all that progression in real time. Given the circumstances, I think they do quite an impressive job but I do think it remains a little awkward.
Anyways, Harry and Sally end up sleeping together. And again you might notice that it’s Sally who leans in to kiss Harry. She’s the one who is ready for this to happen. But Harry, despite sleeping with her, is not ready. So, he does his Harry thing. He holds her for about 30 seconds, and then doesn’t quite manage to stay over all night. He leaves awkwardly, and when they meet for dinner later, the pitter patter of their back and forth has completely gone missing. Now it’s worth noting here that during their earlier argument, Harry says Sally never lets anything bother her and Sally says Harry has to find a way to not express every feeling that he has the moment he has them. Well, this has happened because Sally’s facade finally came down, and this distancing is happening because Harry, mentally shifting Sally from one category to another, is now no longer expressing himself. He feels suffocated. Sex has ruined their friendship, which has answered the central tension of Act II, and so we enter Act III.
Act III has a false resolution and a true resolution. And so in sequence VII, we find our potential lovers separated with the real risk that they will just drift apart. But we need some kind of confrontation because there’s been so much left unsaid between these two. So, it’s a good thing that Jess and Marie are getting married, which brings Harry and Sally back into each other’s orbit. And there’s a bunch of stuff here: first of all, Harry comes over and tries to get into their old groove. Suddenly he’s all chat again. Second, he’s back to being impatient and arrogant. But third, when Sally finally slaps him, it seems to be a wake up call. The film really holds for a beat on his face. And the next time we will see Harry, it’s like he’s slowly woken up. He begins calling Sally, begging for her to just talk to him. And eventually, after our rule of 3 three attempts of increasingly pathetic messages, Sally answers. And again we see that Harry being humbled leads him to where he needs to go. He actually apologises now and Sally is really shaken by it. But she’s not won back, not yet. Sorry is not enough. And when Harry asks her to go to the New Year’s party, Sally, as so often happens in our Sequence VII False Resolution, hits the nail on the head. All this time, she’s been Harry’s consolation prize. He’s not able to really move on, grow up, and fall in love, so he’s kept this amazing woman around to fill a role in his life that he needs. And so we have this question raised again: Romantic partners, friends, or nothing? And right now, Sally has put Harry into the one area he cannot live with: back where he was in act I: nothing.
And so with 8 minutes left, we enter our final sequence, the True Resolution with some version of the question: “Will Harry realise he loves Sally and win her back?” At home, lonely and depressed, Harry tries to lie to himself that this is fine. Meanwhile, Sally is at the party but would rather be at home. Harry walks the streets and as he does so, he spots a couple. And we linger on his sad face. Now, he’s about to make his change, so it’s great that the film makes this subtle callback to “I spy a family”, the phrase that triggered Sally’s realisation that she needed more in life. Harry now spies a couple and it makes him realise that he needs more. The foreshadowing really gives this a little more narrative heft. But something that I really needed the screenplay to fully understand happens next. Harry looks up at a monument, and it cues a flashback. What I didn’t realise is that this is Washington Square, which is the place where Sally dropped him off when they first met. And so it’s a reminder of the first time he and Sally left each other’s lives. As he recalls him telling her that they can never be friends and her saying that that’s a pity, cos he’s the only person she knows in New York, the penny finally drops. They can’t be friends. And he can’t be without her, so there’s only one option left. So it’s a good thing he realises he loves everything about her. He runs to the party that she is just leaving. And he tells her that he loves her, but she’s not convinced. So, Harry convinces her, in maybe the single most romcom speech that ever did romcom. But of course, the difference between this and so many copycats is that this is entirely earned. The whole point is that by the time they have their happy ever after kiss and epilogue, these two people know each other so well and care for each other so deeply. The whole point is, as Sally succinctly puts it, “Anyway, it’s about old friends.”
Epilogue
When Harry Met Sally is probably not my all time favourite romcom — I’m a sucker for the old screwballs — but I do think it is my favourite, and the definitive, modern romcom. And I’d like to talk about why that is.
The first thing I’d like to talk about is the use of the couples throughout, cos I think it’s really clever. First of all, the use of these couples really helps to give this romcom a sense of romantic comedy ultimacy. This is not just a story about two people falling in love, this is a story about how two people meet and fall in love. As tight as this story is, we’re told no fewer than 8 stories of romance throughout. Second of all, it really helps to pace and structure the film. As I said earlier, these couples appear between the sequences here. They appear in minutes 1, 14, 22, 34, 50, 56, and at the end minute 91. Sometimes I refer to the typical sequences in films as stages, and here these really clearly demarcate the stages of When Harry Met Sally. There’s a big leap between each of sequences 1 to 4 especially, and these cut aways allow a sense of time passing, and of space for the story to breathe.
But also, something that totally passed me by for years is how these canned little stories relate thematically to the various stages of the film. The first couple we see tell us a story about a man who knew immediately that his wife was the one. Which provides a sense of irony as we see Harry spend 18 hours not getting on with Sally before saying goodbye to her for 5 years. The next couple we see met each other again after years apart and still felt the same way about each other immediately. Which is exactly what happens to Harry and Sally in our 2nd sequence. Our 3rd couple talks about having had a relationship previously and then coming back together again after the husband’s divorce from another woman. This time it lasted. As we enter act II, this sounds familiar. The 4th sequence’s couple grew up on top of each other, yet somehow missed each other for years. At the midpoint, when Harry and Sally slow dance and they become consciously aware of this romantic chemistry, we have a couple where the woman conveys that since of ‘just knowing’. As a midpoint, it also foreshadows Harry’s climactic speech. Finally then, we have another couple, who speak about an arranged marriage working out after the husband overcame his doubts. This is right after an arranged double date and right before Harry faces his greatest doubt at the low point.
But it’s worth noting that a last couple at the end of act II were cut. It’s almost certainly because we don’t really want to cut away from our story at this stage. But also, every time I see this movie, there’s a little surprise when I first hear Harry and Sally start talking offscreen. It’s been 35 minutes since we’ve last seen this device, so even though it’s been so built into the film, we’ve still been given enough time to forget about it, and it is such a pleasant pay-off to realise that the last couple we’re going to see tell us their great love story is the 2 people we’ve been rooting for this whole time.
And on that note, let me end on the single most important thing: this couple. As I said at the beginning, I think this is the definitive romcom. So it’s worth investigating that concept for a moment. Let’s say a romantic comedy is, more or less, the funny story of two people falling in love. There’s a lot of variation, but there is always this tension of “Will these two people end up together?” So, we always have two people, and the question “will they end up together?”
Bearing only that first part in mind for a moment, I think it’s worth noting how well defined and characterised Harry and Sally are as romantic leads. In your head can you think of Harry and Sally in a variety of situations? Together or apart? I certainly feel like I can. Now, think of any other pair of leads from any other romantic comedy in the last 30 years. Can you picture those leads together and/or apart in any situation outside the film? Imagine Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell having a 5 minute conversation scene where it is just the two of them and there’s nothing in particular to play off or artificially add tension. I really can’t. Now I particularly have a bone to pick with Richard Curtis romcoms, but imagine any romcom that uses a “the two leads are getting on” montage, and insisting that you see a 5 minute conversation scene instead of that montage.
I think it’s pretty hard to imagine for most. Which is strange, cos I would think the question of “Can the relationship between 2 characters alone provide an engine for scenes over and over again?” should be one of the fundamental questions of any story with two leads. Yet, so many romcom leads are really flat, really dull, and can only be supported for a limited runtime through charismatic performers and artificial and superficial tensions. I think this is why there is such a preponderance of ‘the preposterous lie that must be maintained for no good reason’ or ‘a ridiculously terrible partner that they lead is with’ for, again, no good reason.
As Steve Kaplan on film courage points out, bad romcoms are about how two people can ‘get’ together. Good romcoms are about how two people can ‘stay’ together. Because the tension of real life romance is rarely how can we get together. It’s usually how can we, or should we, overcome issues and differences to stay together. How much more interesting is that second question to answer than the first?
Harry and Sally spend this whole film together, with nothing but their own uncertainties, doubts, insecurities, and blind spots keeping them apart. The film has roughly 40 scenes, and over half of those scenes feature pretty much only Harry and Sally. There are few other obstacles. Just these two people, and the question “Can they or should they end up together?” It is the purest form of romcom.
Johan Cruyff famously said “Football is simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.” When you remove all the other obstacles and boil the romcom down to its most base form, there’s nowhere to hide — there’s no crutch to lean on. When I watch Harry and Sally, I feel like these two could have a hundred scenes together, because all the tension and life comes from these two characters’ interactions with each other. These characters are actually characterful. And this also makes When Harry Met Sally genuinely romantic, because when these two get together, it’s not because they’ve cleared up a hugely coincidental misunderstanding or because they’ve had their first actual honest, human-like interaction. The realisation at the end isn’t “Wait, my current boyfriend is actually cartoonishly villainous” or “Wait, it only looked like she was kissing that other guy” or any other such nonsense. Harry’s realisation is that he knows everything about Sally, and the only thing scarier than really committing again is the thought of not having his best friend in his life anymore.
Now, I’ve had a go here at a bunch of romcoms here, because I get frustrated with them, but in their defense, what the creators of When Harry Met Sally have done is exceptionally difficult. And so, to paraphrase the great Johan Cruyff, I’m left thinking that romcoms are simple, but making a pure, genuinely romantic comedy is the hardest thing there is.
This has been Mark Overanalyses Film on When Harry Met Sally. In the next episode, I’ll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Blade Runner. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, rate, follow, recommend, and whatever else it is that’s good for this kind of thing! A special thanks to Mary Kate O’Flanagan who taught me everything I know about film, including these methods. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourselves, and see you soon.
