An ode to When Harry Met Sally

I love When Harry Met Sally. It's my favorite movie not directed by Quentin Tarantino, and not just because Sally wears an amazing dress at a New Year's Eve party.

Bask in the beauty.

I could probably write a series of posts entailing my favorite outfits that Sally wears throughout the movie, but that's not why I love the film so much. I love it because it feels honest. These characters are people you know; they're awkward and unsure of themselves, and they don't have to tell you that for you to know it.

I feel like most characters in romantic comedies are static. These characters exist to get the man while saying quirky, seemingly feminist things. It's the Katherine Heigl model. Seriously, think of any character Heigl has played in a romantic comedy. Did you do it? Then you must know that all her characters follow the exact same formula:

1. Cares about career
2. Says she doesn't care that she's single
3. Starts to like some dude who probably looks like Gerard Butler because duh
4. Has a breakdown because the guy doesn't want her or she thinks he doesn't
5. Realizes he does want her
6. Gets married and lives happily ever after

The problem with this formula is that it isn't how people work. Before I started dating Gideon, I cared more about my career than anything else. Being with him has made me reconsider my views on marriage and children, but my career is still here and still thriving. I won't let being in a relationship change who I am at my very core. A healthy relationship should complement you and make you want to be the best person you can be. 

But that never means that you lose what makes you you. 

That's what's so wonderful about When Harry Met Sally. The film explores optimism and pessimism, revealing that it's impossible to be completely on one end of the spectrum. As Harry and Sally develop, this idea does, too. 

Harry and Sally begin the narrative as foils, carpooling together from Chicago to New York City after graduating from college. Harry, who believes men and women can never be friends because of sexual attraction, states early on that he has a dark side.

"When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first," he tells Sally on the drive. "That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends."

Sally, on the other hand, is the eternal optimist; Harry remarks that she's probably one of those people who dots her "i's" with little hearts. After she turns down his sexual advances, both decide they cannot be friends and separate once they arrive in New York.

They meet again five years later at an airport, where Harry's pessimistic exterior has begun to soften. He tells Sally he is engaged to be married, explaining that falling in love can change a man. He adds that he has also become tired of dating, sleeping with women and never calling them again, so he's not exactly floating on clouds here.

Sally is still fairly optimistic, telling her boyfriend she loves him for the first time before boarding the plane. Again, Harry and Sally separate and decide not to be friend. When they meet five years later, Harry is distraught from his impending divorce and Sally is seemingly well-adjusted after her five-year relationship has ended. This is when they become friends.

They finally connect because they have both experienced great joy and great pain and can now identify with each other. At the end of the film, they predictably get together at a New Year's Eve party where Sally where that amazing dress. Somehow, it doesn't feel so predictable.

Though he is willing to open himself up to love again, Harry hasn't lost his pessimistic edge. And Sally, who tearfully recalls her ex-boyfriend getting engaged shortly after their breakup, still retains her optimism in accepting Harry's proclamation of love. They've both loved and lost but are willing to love all over again.

It's an amalgamation of pessimism and optimism. Together, Harry and Sally form middle ground between the two outlooks. I always identified as a pessimist, so it was hard for me to see that in this film when I first watched it in high school. 

Then I discovered great happiness. I found a job I love. I found a man I love. Though I am now happy most of the time,  I still tend to think the worst of others. I curse at bad drivers and I think about death for hours sometimes.

I'm not Harry Burns anymore, but I'm not Sally Albright either. The more life experience I gain, the more I think we're all a Harry-Sally hybrid, equally capable of extreme sadness and extreme happiness, just trying to figure out where we fall on the spectrum.