The Art of the Nora Ephron Rom-Com

It goes without saying that she was the queen of 90s romantic comedies. If you’ve never heard of Nora Ephron, it’s because you’ve probably never even seen her face, but don’t worry, you wouldn’t have anyways. She was not a starlet. She was a director, screenwriter and journalist. She critiqued the world in which she lived, and in doing so, left a dazzling collection of movies that even a rom-com skeptic will warm up to. 

Ephron directed Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and wrote When Harry Met Sally– yes, the iconic film that stars Ephron’s cinematic muse Meg Ryan and comedian-actor Billy Crystal. Yes, the one where the pair sit in the world-famous Katz’s Delicatessen and Meg Ryan does that thing. 

Ryan’s versatile acting chops were a joyous common thread in all three movies, but there’s just something else about those movies that have placed Ephron in an esteemed position sought by many but rarely achieved. 

To create a rom-com with Hollywood regulars like Ryan and Tom Hanks, (Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail), while making them seem like the vulnerable shells of human beings that we so often are in the beginning stages of a giddy-lovey-dovey-butterfly stomached period of courtship is what makes Ephron an auteur. 

When Harry Met Sally was directed by Rob Reiner, however, it is Ephron’s pervasive words and diction that solidify the movies as a mood, rather than a cinematic experience. 

What makes Ephron’s rom-coms stick?

Firstly, they may follow the archetypal, girl-meets-boy and happily-ever-after, but archetypal doesn’t imply boring. Especially in the Ephron Cinematic Universe. 

Ephron took the reins on a movie genre that prior to the late 80s had been scarce, dry, and unforgiving to the hopeless romantics in all of us, and added a feminine turbulence to it. 

Her insistence on the complexities of females was palpable, and as she said it best, “I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.” 

With this in mind, it is easy to understand that Ephron was not invested in the art of the ‘chick flick’, a genre defined by a common denominator damsel in distress who doesn’t put up a fight in the name of love and succumbs to the predictability of the very genre in which she exists. 

Ephron, who was also famed for her essays and social critique knew something about love that many of us refuse to recognize (pride, I tell ya, it’s the worst thing ever). Love is stubborn, and those who participate in it are equally as stubborn. Her characters are never really looking for love, rather they fall into it by the force of Ephron’s quirky scenarios and revealing dialogue. 

Not convinced? Well curl yourself up, pick one of the three movies I mentioned, (and perhaps a pen and paper) and take note as you watch a master’s vision unfold itself in front of you. Face it, there’s a reason why critics and commentators alike still honour famous quotes of the late Ephron’s movies since her passing in 2012. 

So, with that being said, I’ll leave you with the words of Sleepless in Seattle’s Jonah Baldwin: 

H and G. 

(If you know, you know.)