Call me a sap, call me sentimental -- I have an immense, bordering on obsessive, love for the movie When Harry Met Sally.
My love for this romantic comedy dates back to an innocent channel-surfing episode in my teenage years. My mother interrupted me watching The Real World for the umpteenth time and told me to watch the movie When Harry Met Sally instead. She thought I might enjoy the movie.
"Enjoy" did not do my feelings justice. Like Meg Ryan fell head over heels for Billy Crystal, I fell head over heals for the plot line, the script, and well, the overall message.
For those of you unfamiliar with the movie's brilliance, Sally (Meg Ryan) drives across the country with Harry (Billy Crystal). They don't click at first, but eventually meet again years later and become friends. While they are friends, they are both dating other people until one passionate moment where they sleep together. After that significant event, the way Harry and Sally act acknowledge how that moment completely changed their relationship. While we watch their relationship evolve, writer Nora Ephron was smart enough to intertwine love stories of older couples in-between the drama of Harry and Sally's relationship to further illustrate that like good wine, relationships get finer with age.
The character of Sally epitomizes what all girls really want, at least in my opinion: to marry someone who is crazy about them. I welcome a movie that takes the time to illustrate why people shouldn't settle and stay in a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship.
I adore the script.
For a movie advertised as a typical romantic comedy, the writing is refreshing and memorable. My all-time favorite scene is when Harry tells Sally on New Year's Eve that he loves her. Instead of the usual, "I love you, I can't live without you" predictable writing, Harry lists the unique characteristics about Sally that make him never want to live without her. The dialogue reinforces the true idea of a relationship and the length of time Harry spent with Sally over the years to learn these distinctive qualities about her.
In today's society, where Americans are continuously fed horrendous love reality shows that attempt to say love can be manufactured and bought, I have intense respect for a movie that illustrates the time and effort that goes into making a relationship and a marriage work.
In a world where 50 percent of marriages fail, and "friends with benefits" describes the average college relationship, I appreciate a movie that illustrates a realistic view on love -- that sometimes a person doesn't find a soul mate until 32, like Sally. This fact alone explains why I insist on watching it everytime a boy screws me over.
I value a movie that demonstrates that sometimes people don't realize their soul mate is their best friend since elementary school. Not every relationship resembles Dawson and Joey's where they proclaimed their love for one another at 15. Sometimes people need to age to realize that everything that they are looking for in a person was in the geeky science nerd in grade school.
This movie has aged, but the enjoyment of watching it hasn't. Because to me, the values of never settling for less than you deserve and what is worth having is worth waiting for still ring in my ear just like Billy Crystal's rendition of "The Surrey With The Fringe On Top."
