These probably aren’t the sort of film anyone expects to find around here, but when it comes to writer/directors who continued the tradition of the romances of the studio era in Hollywood without just being retro, Nora Ephron at her best – and she certainly was in these two films - probably was the best too, dropping as many nods and smiles in the direction of other films as Quentin Tarantino. Of course, because being a woman in Hollywood still sucks, and the film genres Ephron was involved in usually don’t even get the cult credits of the sort of film I’m usually talking about here, only a handful of critics ever cared. Not that this blogger is an exception, mind you, for I’ve been turning up my nose at most romantic comedies for quite a few years, as well. Chalk this up as another thing about which I have been wrong.
What makes these two films special is not just Ephron’s ability to construct a romantic comedy that never is too sappy while still tugging on a viewer’s heart strings. Rather, Ephron here gives us a complete package full of perfectly timed sequences, dialogue that’s clever and sharp and flows so naturally you never stop and think that nobody talks this cleverly in real life, and direction that is much more imaginative in its approach than it lets on. Add to that an excellent cast (remember Tom Hanks when he wasn’t completely in thrall to the illusion he’s a great dramatic actor or, Cthulhu help us, a director, and when Meg Ryan wasn’t kicked to the curb side with Hollywood’s obsession not with youth but with people over forty looking like thin pressed sausages?), the director’s excellent taste in the use of music, and I don’t see how I couldn’t like these films.
Sure, I disagree with Ephron’s idea of romantic love, and certainly can’t help but raise my eyebrows at the absence of non-rich people in these films, but then, I also don’t believe in ghosts yet still enjoy a good ghost story told by fussy old upper-class academics.
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