WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
Harry and Sally’s under-the-duvet Casablanca chat kicks off our lockdown celebration of the best comfort movies
CHOOSING THE MOST comforting moment in Rob Reiner’s 1989 romcom is a bit like asking which is the warmest log on the fire. Who cares when everything around you is this cosy? This is a film for lockdown: all long walks in the park and excellent knitwear, and even the downer moments shot through with bright and shiny hope.
But if there’s one scene that’s right for right now, it’s when Harry (Billy Crystal), mourning his failed marriage, calls Sally (Meg Ryan), to find her rewatching Casablanca. He syncs up his Netflix — sorry, turns to the right channel — and the pair, warm and cosy in their respective beds, discuss the greatest film ever made, Harry’s hypochondria and whether they’re sleeping okay after devastating break-ups: “That’s the good thing about depression, you get your rest,” says Harry. The very familiarity of the movie they’re watching makes the conversation flow: they’re both revelling in its greatness and half-ignoring it to focus on one another. The moment also shows how far they’ve come: Sally no longer thinks that Ilsa should have ended up with Laszlo and Harry’s no longer grandstanding about how good Rick would be in bed.
It’s a peak moment of ease and comfort in their friendship, a little before they first realise that they might feel something for each other, and it’s expressed through the language of movie-loving, the same one that we speak. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” says Bogart, which Harry claims is the greatest last line in film history (it’s at least arguable). It could almost have been the theme of the film; had Reiner not fallen in love with his second wife during filming, Harry and Sally might have finished the movie as friends. But he did — the Reiners are still married — and so we’re treated to a run for love, and unorthodox declaration of affection. The final endorphin rush of seeing Harry and Sally, still bickering, on the same documentary-esque sofas where ancient couples sat before to tell their lifelong love stories, is gorgeous — but men and women can also be friends, and watch Casablanca together, and that’s not nothing.