“When Harry Met Sally” costar Harley Jane Kozak tells Carlson, “America will never forgive Meg Ryan for growing old,” and that her work with Ephron was “the perfect storm of genre, decade, style, and her particular form of youthfulness.” Carlson writes that Ryan went from “America’s Sweetheart to Hester Prynne overnight” for a tabloid affair with Russell Crowe. The films’ influence is definitely a huge part of it, but also what effect it had on the stars, most notably Ryan. Carlson writes of Ephron’s famous love of food, and the actors who were considered for, but not cast in, some of the most iconic roles (Debra Winger, Helen Hunt and Meg Tilly were all considered for Sally, while Kirstie Alley and Marisa Tomei were in the running for Becky, the best friend in “Sleepless in Seattle” played by Rosie O’Donnell).īut ultimately, the book serves to show how the movies were made and the effect they had. “A stickler for specifics,” Carlson writes, Ephron fired a prop guy while filming a movie in Toronto that was supposed to be set in New York City for using generic cream soda instead of the very New York City brand Dr. “I’ll Have What She’s Having,” in part, gives us a glimpse into the making of the films.
From films starring icons Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn to Molly Ringwald’s character pining over Jake Ryan (one of the all-time great movie hunks) in “Sixteen Candles,” these movies and the people in them look good. There’s also something downright stylish about rom-coms.
The television was on and, as a child of divorced parents, watching people end up together after a series of hilarious events and wrong turns must have spoken to me, stuck just far enough in the suburbs, the Chicago city skyline visible on sunny days. Personally speaking, I think it’s all about conditioning - grandparents who watched “The Philadelphia Story” and “It Happened One Night” while they babysat me made me fall in love with movies about falling in love. There’s no study that concludes the hows and whys people gravitate toward these kinds of films and shows. But the case Erin Carlson makes in “I’ll Have What She’s Having” is solid: Nora Ephron reinvented and saved the genre with “When Harry Met Sally,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail.” Today, thanks to films like “The Big Sick” and television shows like “The Mindy Project,” the rom-com is having a moment. It takes a certain kind of person to watch “Pretty Woman” whenever they come across it on TV, argue that “Boomerang” is an overlooked classic, and make fun of Adam Sandler films but defend “The Wedding Singer” to the death.
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