When Harry Met Sally by Life of This City Girl – Ultimate 80s Blogathon

Welcome to the penultimate review from our guests for the Ultimate 80s Blogathon! Today, Natasha from Life of This City Girl takes a look at the romantic comedy classic When Harry Met Sally.  Natasha writes reviews for all kinds of movies and TV series, as well as participates in the blindspot series and 100 Happy Days, plus much more. There is a lot going on at her site so go give it a look if you don’t follow her already.  But for now, let’s look at her thoughts on When Harry Met Sally.

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Plot: Harry and Sally have known each other for years, and are very good friends, but they fear sex would ruin the friendship

Rating: 8.5/10

Goodness! I am so happy that Kim and Drew got this idea – it made me actually sit down and watch this movie, something that I’ve been meaning to get to for ages. I am so glad that I did. I had an absolutely fantastic time. I’m going to confess that I deviated just a tiny bit from the rules here (sorry guys!) and watched this for the first time for the blogathon. But what a great idea from myself if I say so – the modesty! – because When Harry Met Sally is going to go into my ever changing list of romantic comedies that are very worth watching.

Let’s first say this – When Harry Met Sally is so very 80s. The hairstyles, the absolutely horrendous clothing. It was obviously a time when female independence was associated with dressing really ugly, and I am very happy that we are now in a time where you can be independent and dress in nice clothes. Meg Ryan’s hair though. It gave me such life. I do wish we could still be okay with walking around with bed hair every day without caring. It would have been so amazing!

The dialogue is witty and sharp. That counts really in the favour of any film, and here it is no different. Billy Crystal is Harry, the slightly cynical man who starts out with questionable morals but as age works its’ magic he too becomes a grown-up and slightly scarred by life. Meg, as you’ve correctly guessed, is Sally, the OTT girl who should be really annoying but still remains charming (got to love the rom-coms for that!) They naturally start out hating each other and after the expected friendship drama strikes through impetuous hormones and the two realize they love each other.

Why does this work so well? If you throw in a witty dialogue, two actors who are both attractive and have chemistry and manage to tell a story without whining on and on about it, you generally have a great chance of making a movie that is worth watching. When Harry Met Sally has all of this and a real feel-good factor to it. It asks the valid question of whether men and women can actually be platonic friends (I believe they can!) and while the movie eventually points out that it leads to marriage, which is dramatic to say the very least and certainly not what I think, I loved the theme and the execution of it. If you haven’t managed to see this yet, I suggest that you try it out. Totally worth the watch!

Thanks Kim and Drew! This is such a good idea and was such fun doing it 🙂