Growing up is realizing that life isn’t a rom-com.  Love isn’t as simple as boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back- the typical set up for many a romantic comedy, complete with a running through the airport scene and two hot love interests (almost uncomfortably hot).  Growing up is realizing that not everyone is uncomfortably hot (thank God) and hardly anyone would attempt running through an airport for love.  Well- perhaps they might attempt a light jog.  There is a romantic comedy however, that has always been grown up and is now considered a classic.  When Harry Met Sally isn’t a typical Hollywood love story.  It’s carefully crafted in a way that is both terribly realistic and wonderfully magical.  The Rob Reiner directed film features the brilliant writing talent of Nora Ephron and the acting chops of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal.  The best part about it is that there’s still a sense of rom-com magic- or perhaps, that magic is simply just the nature of life.  Sometimes life is funny and ironic, and that’s what makes it good.  But of course, it can’t always be good.  

One of the worst parts of growing up is experiencing heartbreak, sometimes over and over again.  The world seems to stop, feelings of dread and sadness take over, a slight sting dominates the chest, percolating until there’s nothing else to think about but the lost love.  Moments that felt like they would last forever, are gone and there’s nothing that can be done about that.  Time and heartbreak go hand in hand.  The change that comes with time, especially.  Change can be viewed as the enemy when one is experiencing the pain of heartbreak.  The question of “what changed in the relationship?” or “I wish I can go back to the way things were” begin to pop up but specifically the statement, “I wish that nothing had changed.”  Growing up is realizing that change is inevitable, and that change definitely isn’t the enemy.  When Harry Met Sally has always been grown up because of the way it uses the titular theme of life’s ever changing ways to talk about love and friendship.  

So, when does Harry meet Sally?  In 1977, post-graduation from the University of Chicago.  Harry, in the arms of his then girlfriend Amanda Reese (not Amanda Rice) and Sally, in her car, ready to get the show on the road.  They are driving together from Chicago to New York, where they will be attending graduate school and pursuing big New York plans. The audience gets to know Harry, who is witty and sarcastic, if not a bit cynical.  Sally, on the other hand, is warm, optimistic, and a go-getter who knows exactly what she wants, if not a bit picky.   It is during this drive when the age old quote comes up, as Harry states, “men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” This is where it all begins.  Sally and Harry disagree over this, and naturally begin to dislike each other.  And of course, since men and women can’t be friends, any sign of potential friendship is doomed.  “It’s a shame,” Sally says, “you were the only person that I would have known in New York.”  They leave each other, seemingly forever once they get to Manhattan, but unbeknownst to them the universe has other plans.  It’s brilliant how they are able to meet several times, especially in a huge, bustling city.  Ephron dared to sprinkle in just a touch of romantic magic, because what’s the point of life without it?  In five year increments they meet each other again and again, and ten years later, they’ve finally met at the right time. 

This is when the element of change begins to set in.  Scattered throughout the film, Ephron makes sure to include her journalistic flare with the couple interviews.  All of the couples are older, and they are recalling how they got together with their partners.  They are describing their past, and a series of changes that led them to this point- something that Harry and Sally are going through at that very moment.  Harry starts off cynical (but remains sarcastic of course) and gets married, which baffles Sally when she makes this discovery, letting him know that, “it’s just so optimistic of you, Harry.”  Sally mostly remains the same mentally, but in those 10 years she has both gotten together with and broken up with someone, and Harry has since divorced his wife, the one that made him optimistic for a brief moment in time.  When they meet again, they are both very fragile, aren’t ready to date anyone yet, and form an unlikely friendship because they are finally able to stand each other.  Despite all of the changes life has thrown at them, they are able to form a friendship.  The homage to Casablanca, which is referenced throughout the film, does a great job of showing the formation of a friendship, and how two people can change for each other.  There’s a shot as they are walking through the park, replicating the iconic ending shot from Casablanca in which Humphrey Bogart observes, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Indeed, it is.  Along with the changing friendship and characters comes the changing of the season.  With every new hair style, year and relationship status, the seasons change, specifically from fall to winter.  This not only shows the passage of time but how change is affecting the two of them. 

Things start to get complicated once Sally discovers that her ex boyfriend Joe is getting married.  He’s marrying his “transitional person” and of course this hurts, not really because he’s moving on, but because he’s marrying someone who he basically just met.  It proves that he wasn’t just against marriage, which is what Sally had thought, but that he did not want to marry her, because of the unfortunate truth that he didn’t love her the way she loved him.  So Harry comes over to help.  Cue the heartbreak (and the sex, which, as a matter of fact, only ruined things for a little bit).

Here’s what really matters.  It’s New Year’s Eve, and midnight is fast approaching.  Harry realizes that he’s in love, before Sally, and yes, there is a running somewhere out of love scene, but it’s not an airport, it’s across the city.  The New Year arrives, just as Harry tells Sally he loves her, but Sally keeps her guard up.  But it’s this phrase that stays, “I came here tonight because 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.”  It took more than ten years to get to this moment of love, which is something that is barely talked about in romantic comedies.  Love takes time.  Love develops with change.  Just as fall changes to winter, enemies become friends, and friendships change to love.