Those of us getting ready to watch Carrie Fisher reprise her most famous role as Princess-turned-General Leia will also relish this chance to see her in another great film. It’s the 1989 gem, written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner; Ephron re-invented the metropolitan romantic comedy, taking it from writers like Woody Allen and Neil Simon and melding it with the more modern concept of the “relationship” comedy, something with more emotional literacy.
Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal play Sally and Harry, two friends who wonder if men and women can ever truly be friends, without wanting to have sex? Is their wondering itself simply a mating dance? (Jerry Seinfeld and Julia Louis-Dreyfus tried solving this a generation later by making Jerry and Elaine best friends who are exes.) Meanwhile, their best friends, wonderfully played by Fisher and the late Bruno Kirby, show them parallel lives by themselves getting together in coupledom.
There is a great dialogue about sex and dating, including of course the famous fake-orgasm scene over lunch, effectively breaking the unwritten omertà rule – the keeping of gender secrets. Still a treat.
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