"I'll have what she's having."

Also, this:

"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 the 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 your life to start as soon as possible."

         I regularly talk about my love for romcoms, and how they can actually be intelligent and funny and realistic, while still maintaining their almost fairytale-like idea. I mean I saw Sleeping Beauty yesterday and well, pretty much hated it. I actually had to google the message of the story, and that apparently was "dreaming of and believing in your true love". So this got me thinking about the whole concept of "true love" and how this inane story had to be woven around it to make people understand the importance of it. It seemed almost ridiculous because ever since we are born, we are told of this because it's such an obvious thing that everyone believes will happen to all of us! But maybe, just maybe, it isn't so... And when it does happen to someone, it is actually as magical as these fables of fairies and witches and kisses.

          Romantic comedies, at their core, cherish this idea. Having just watched When Harry Met Sally, it is full of random scenes of couples sitting together and talking about how they met and how they've been married for so many many years. These people, they found this fairytale ending to their life, and it is believable, and it is something we can adore and aspire for.

          Also the humour. The best example is the video given above. I like laughing and feeling happy during a movie. I even watched this film after one of the saddest days of my life, when my grandfather had passed away and I just needed to be cheered up. No it did not help me overcome my grief, but for a few of those moments, I needed to be swept away in a world without mourning and death and something like "baby fish-mouth" seemed to do the trick.

          Nora Ephron (1941-2012) wrote When Harry Met Sally. She had written and directed many other features, but this was always the one closest to my heart. It is as perfect a romantic comedy as they come. The characters are funny and sad and sweet, and someone you can (theoretically and hopefully) meet walking down a street. The dialogue is brilliant, like the little excerpt above. And it embraces the fairytale ending in a very real world of relationships. Nora Ephron was able to capture all that in this incredible script, due to which we have such an iconic and happy film. It is often so much more attractive to write something cynical or depressing, or fall into the trap of the film actually being silly instead of happy. This film is neither.

           Ephron, like the character of Sally with her specific food instructions, knew how the elements of a story work together to make it a lovely and unforgettable experience. When Harry Met Sally is but an example of her talent. While I haven't seen her dramatic stuff, her romances and comedies always brought a big smile to my face.

          It is sad when someone like that passes along, and we can't help but go over their life's work and be impressed and inspired by it.

RIP NORA EPHRON 

You will be sorely missed.