The
movie takes place over a number of years and follows Harry (Billy Crystal) and
Sally (Meg Ryan) as they become friends, drift apart, and then eventually drift
back together at a cliché New Years Eve party. It all starts when the Harry and
Sally share a ride from Chicago to New York City. This is the first time that
they discuss if men and women can be friends and have sex. They decide that
they can’t, and eventually they go their separate ways. However, years later,
Harry and Sally meet again on a plane and they discuss the same question. Both
are now in relationships and Harry is about to get married. Harry ends up
exclaiming that men and women can’t be friends even if they are in
relationships with other people. Eventually they part ways again. THEN Harry
and Sally meet again a few more years later, after Sally broke up with her
significant other and Harry was left by his wife. This meeting happened in a
bookstore and eventually led to dinner. Eventually, Harry realizes that he has
a woman friend (Sally) and it stands against what he originally thought about
men and women being friends. Their friendship develops and through complicated
twist and turns they eventually grow apart BUT they do end up together in the
end. (Hopefully that isn’t too confusing of a synopsis).
Overall,
the film made me think of Plato’s Symposium,
specifically Aristophanes speech. In his speech, he delivers the story of two
halves. “When a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his
orientation, whether its to young men or not, then something wonderful happens:
the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one
another, and by desire, and they don’t want to be separated from one another
not even for a moment” (192C). This quote seems applicable to When Harry Met Sally because when the
two met, they seemed connected and the fact that they just kept running in to
each other seemed like a work of the gods.
Though
Harry and Sally met long before they became friends or even fell in love, they
dated others and married others before they realized their true half. Aristophanes
exclaims that, “if love is our guide and our commander. Let no one work against
him. Whoever opposes Love is hateful to the gods” (193B). It took Sally and
Harry ten years to realize that they were each others “halves” and because it
took them so long it caused heartbreak and destruction (Harry’s divorce).
The
last quote that I want to point out from Aristophanes’ speech is, “these are
the people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is
they want from one another. No one would think it is the intimacy of sex-that
mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep a joy in being with
the other” (192D). Harry and Sally do end up living their lives together and
eventually getting married. Though their relationship was built on an ongoing
friendship, not merely on sexual interest.
Speaking of sex, this is one of the funniest moments of the film:
Your argument is interesting, because when I first was comparing the synopsis to Plato it seemed that it was not a good comparison, since despite having met multiple times there was never a connection really made for the majority of the movie. However, when you consider the prerequisite of finding their "true" selves then I can see what your point is.
ReplyDeleteAt the very least during their first meeting they agreed on the man and women having sex question, so perhaps that was foreshadowing.