Harry & Sally Celebrate Their 25th!

People, can you believe it’s been 25 years? It’s been 25 years since we first watched a fresh-faced Meg Ryan and a sardonic Billy Crystal argue about whether men and women can sustain friendship, discuss the complexity of ordering pie à la mode, and finally realize, after a lonely New Year’s Eve, that they belong together. The brainchild of writer Nora Ephron and director Rob Reiner, who each brought to the film their unique perspectives on love and relationships, When Harry Met Sally is a true classic. Here, three of my favorite scenes from one of the best rom-coms ever, and the romantic truths that emerged from them.

Truth #1: Ladies, every man secretly wants to bang you.

When Harry, Billy’s character, and Sally, Meg’s character, share a car ride from Chicago to New York after college graduation, they engage in a heated debate over whether or not men and women can be friends. Harry says this is impossible “because the sex part always gets in the way.”

“That’s not true,” says Sally. “I have a number of men friends and there’s no sex involved.”

“No you don’t,” says Harry.

“Yes, I do,” says Sally.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You only think you do.”

“You’re saying I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?” Sally asks.

“No,” says Harry. “I’m saying they all want to have sex with you…Because no man can be friends with a woman he finds attractive. He wants to have sex with her.”

“So you’re saying a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive.”

“No. You pretty much want to nail them, too.”

Years later, Nora Ephron, God rest her brilliant and funny soul, wrote about her experience creating the 1989 screenplay with Billy Crystal and Rob Reiner. “I don’t want to sound Pollyannaish about any of this,” she said. “Rob and I disagreed. We disagreed all the time. Rob believes that men and women can’t be friends. I disagree. And both of us are right. Which brings me to what When Harry Met Sally is really about—not, as I said, whether men and women can be friends, but about how different men and women are. The truth is that men don’t want to be friends with women. Men know they don’t understand women, and they don’t much care. They want women as lovers, as wives, as mothers, but they’re not really interested in them as friends…Women know they don’t understand men, and it bothers them: they think that if only they could be friends with them, they would understand them and, what’s more (and this is their gravest mistake), it would help.”

Truth #2: Men, a high-maintenance woman is worth fighting for.

Harry and Sally are sitting in a diner, somewhere off the highway during their road trip. The waitress comes over to take their order. Sally says, “I’d like the chef salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side. And the apple pie à la mode.”

While the waitress writes that down, Sally adds a few caveats: “I’d like the pie heated, and I don’t want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side. And I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it’s real. If it’s out of a can, then nothing.”

The waitress says, “Not even the pie?”

Sally says, “No, just the pie. But then not heated.”

Later, Harry would explain to her that there are three types of women: high maintenance, low maintenance, and “the worst kind: high maintenance women who think they’re low maintenance.” Yep, that’s Sally.

“I just want what I want,” she says.

“I know,” he says. “High maintenance.”

C’mon, guys, stop bitching about high-maintenance women. Would you turn down a Jaguar just because it’s high maintenance? Would you throw your beloved Border Collie out on the street, just because it’s high maintenance? Would give away your 150-pound smoker-roaster that gives you street cred at every neighborhood barbecue, just because it’s high maintenance? Didn’t think so. You knew what you were getting into when you invited each of those into your life, and you acknowledge that the high quality is worth the high maintenance. Harry knows this too, which is why he spends 11 years chasing Sally.

Truth #3: A kick-ass New Year’s Eve speech can go a long way.

About three-fourths into the movie, Harry screws up. That is, he screws Sally, the love of his life, and then turns cold on her because he’s scared to death. The second-to-last scene takes place on New Year’s Eve, where a broken-hearted Sally is having an awful time at a fancy shindig. Meanwhile, Harry is home watching the ball drop on television when he realizes he made a huge mistake, and he subsequently runs through the streets of Manhattan—because everyone knows you can’t get a taxi on New Year’s Eve in Manhattan—to find Sally and declare his love. He finds her as she’s about to leave the party.

“The thing is, I love you,” he tells her. But she’s not buying it. “It doesn’t work that way,” she says.

“Well how about this way,” he says, and then goes on to deliver one of the most romantic speeches in movie history:

“I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour-and-a-half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes and I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.”

Sally says, “You see, that is just like you Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you. And I hate you Harry…I really hate you.” And then the kiss that finally brings them together.

Although there will probably never be a sequel, and we’ll never know if Harry and Sally make it in the long run, we can at least be certain they both appreciate all the hard work it took to get them to get to that kiss—and the (eventual) mutual understanding that eludes so many of us in love.

Sally taught us—and hopefully our men—that a high-maintenance woman is worth fighting for.