When Harry Met Sally...
恋人たちの予感
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Can men and women be friends; the deli scene is the most famous fake orgasm in cinema.
In 1977 Harry Burns and Sally Albright graduate from the University of Chicago, and since Harry is dating her friend Amanda, Sally gives him a lift to New York. He is a cynic, she an optimist, and they argue all the way. Harry insists that men and women can never be friends, because the man always wants to sleep with the woman. At the Washington Square Arch they part, expecting never to meet again.
Five years later they run into each other at an airport. Sally is seeing Joe; Harry is engaged to Helen. He proposes friendship, cannot square it with his own theory, and she walks away. By 1987 Helen has left Harry for another man, and Sally has split up with Joe, who thought marriage spoils a relationship. Meeting again in a bookshop, they talk over what went wrong and this time become close, honest friends. Over lunch in a Manhattan delicatessen, Sally tells Harry that men cannot tell when a woman is faking an orgasm, and proves it by faking one at the table while the other diners stare. A woman nearby orders what she is having.
At a New Year's Eve party they feel something between them and say nothing. They set their best friends, Marie and Jess, up on a double date, and those two fall for each other instead. One night Sally rings Harry in tears: Joe is getting married. Harry comes to comfort her and they sleep together. Sally is glad; Harry, who always leaves soon after sex, slips out early in the morning. They call it a mistake, but she is hurt, and at Marie and Jess's wedding they quarrel. By Christmas she refuses to be his consolation prize.
On New Year's Eve Sally goes to a party alone while Harry walks the city, back to the Washington Square Arch. Then he runs to the party and catches her as she is leaving. She thinks he is only lonely. He lists the things he loves about her and says that now he knows what he feels, he wants their life together to begin as soon as possible. Three months later they are married, and, like the older couples interviewed between the scenes, they sit side by side and tell how they met.
Starring
Billy Crystalas Harry Burns
A cynic who insists men and women cannot be friends, and spends twelve years testing the theory on Sally.
Harry Burns’s story
Harry leaves Chicago in 1977 sure that sex always gets in the way between men and women, and says so all the way to New York. Five years later he is engaged to Helen and offers Sally a friendship his own theory will not allow. By 1987 Helen has left him for another man, and this time Sally becomes his closest friend. Running into Helen with her new partner shakes him, and he tells Marie and Jess that even happy couples end badly. The night he comforts Sally and they sleep together, he slips away early, as he always does, and by Christmas she has shut him out. On New Year's Eve he walks alone to the Washington Square Arch, runs to the party and tells her what he loves about her; three months later they are married.
Meg Ryanas Sally Albright
An optimistic journalist who believes men and women can be friends, and becomes Harry's closest one.
Sally Albright’s story
In 1977 Sally dismisses Harry's claim that men and women cannot be friends, and takes his compliment for a pass. In 1982, seeing Joe, she turns down Harry's friendship. By 1987 she and Joe have split, because he would not marry, and she insists she is fine. They become close friends; in a delicatessen she shows Harry how easily a woman can fake pleasure. When she hears Joe is getting married, she rings Harry in tears. They sleep together; she is glad, and his leaving early hurts her. At Marie and Jess's wedding she insists the night meant something; at Christmas she refuses to be his consolation prize. On New Year's Eve he finds her at a party and, when she says he is only lonely, tells her what he loves about her; three months later they are married.
Carrie Fisheras Marie
Sally's best friend, who falls for Harry's friend Jess on a double date meant for Harry and Sally, and marries him.
Bruno Kirbyas Jess
Harry's best friend, who meets Marie on the double date, moves in with her and marries her.
Why it matters
When Harry Met Sally... takes a question people really do ask, whether a man and a woman can be friends, and answers it slowly, over twelve years, through two people who become friends first and lovers later. Nora Ephron built Harry partly from interviews with Rob Reiner about his life after divorce, and Sally partly from herself and her friends, and the film's frankness about sex comes from both. Its most famous scene makes a serious point as a joke: a woman can perform pleasure well enough that the man across the table has no idea. Reiner recalls that at a test screening the women in the audience laughed and the men sat silent. Ephron won a BAFTA for the screenplay, and in 2022 the film entered the US National Film Registry. The question it leaves is less whether friendship survives desire than whether love can grow out of knowing someone completely.