Monday Minute
No. 132 | July 19, 2010

Chick Flicks Not Just for Chicks

Perhaps you saw the news this past week that scientists in Britain have solved the age-old question, Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  The answer:  the chicken.  Now we know.  No word from them, however, on another pressing question, Are chick flicks just for chicks?  (You’re right.  We don’t need scientists to answer that one.)

The dictionary says the term “chick flick” dates to 1988.  That’s not so long ago.  Certainly films for women were made in earlier times.  Look at the films of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Stanwyck, to name a few, and you’ll find many movies, some of them classics, about women and for women.  Somewhere along the way, though, movies trended more male (and more young).  Whatever the reasons (television was one factor among many), the movies came to neglect the female audience.  Despite the emergence of chick flicks, that’s a condition that for the most part continues today (though women shouldn’t feel too left out since Hollywood ignores the entire adult audience, regardless of sex).

Beaches came out in 1988 (was that the one that started it?).  The chick flick was born, and Hollywood can now say it makes an occasional movie for women, though it’s a far cry from the women’s film of years ago.  Top-quality fare with intelligent stories and A-list talent are rare to see today in films targeted for women.  Does Hollywood aim to serve the female audience, or just exploit it?  (That’s not an entirely rhetorical question, but a subject of some debate.  Critics Andrew Sarris and Manohla Dargis, have called the genre a “ghetto.”  Producer Lynda Obst puts in a defense.  And while you’re at it, read Molly Haskell.)

I am not among the target audience for chick flicks, which by definition (I’ve been told) are not supposed to appeal to guys.  I have a problem with that definition.  I’m a moviegoer with broad tastes.  I like a ton of movies that aren’t “targeted” to me.  So if I find a movie doesn’t have any appeal, I think the fault lies with the movie, not my Y chromosome.

This week you’ll get my take on a few chick flicks that did appeal to me.  It’s a highly unscientific survey, just my point of view.  I should probably add that I ran my list past the resident chick flick expert in our house, my wife, and let’s just say her list would be different.  So it goes.

Our theme this week
Chick flicks—one guy’s take

When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

Over the years I’ve heard many women say When Harry Met Sally… is among their favorite “chick flicks” (or “date movies,” or “romantic comedies”; the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, sometimes not).  I understand why the movie appeals to me.  It’s not so simple to understand why it appeals to them.

The movie has several things going for it.  First of all, it’s funny.  It’s funny because Billy Crystal is a gifted comedian and here, as Harry, he gives one of the top comic performances of the past few decades.  He doesn’t have all the jokes, but he doesn’t even need jokes to be funny.  “I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie” is hardly much of punchline, but when Crystal says it, just try not to laugh.  He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t try to be funny.  He just is.  The only times he’s not believable is when he’s playing the stereotypical male jerk.  He’s too smart for some of the things he has to say, but he’s funny enough we give him a pass.  Aside from the humor, Crystal accounts for much of the film’s warmth, and it’s hard to imagine the film existing without him as the male lead.

The other lead, Meg Ryan, has a more difficult task as Sally.  Prim and “high maintenance,” in Harry’s words, Sally is his opposite in many ways.  That works for dramatic purposes, but she comes off as icy while he is likable, not easy work for an actress in a romance.  Through the movie, we do warm up to Sally.  Part of it is that we like Harry so much, and if he can fall in love with her, so can we.  But Ryan deserves a lot of credit for her portrayal of a character who learns the limits of her ways, and changes.  She gives a beating heart to a role that at first seemed to be missing one.  Ryan has us liking Sally more than the part really deserves.

The performances, especially the interplay between Crystal and Ryan, put the movie over the top.  Nora Ephron’s script is an observant look at the modern dating world, fresh then though a little cliched now.  Rob Reiner was in top form in the director’s chair, and his mother, Estelle, got the film’s signature line, the last word in the Katz’s Deli scene, in the clip below.

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When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Rob Reiner, director
Nora Ephron, writer
Trailer

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When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal
At Katz’s Delicatessen

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Quote of Note
“Had my dream again where I’m making love, and the Olympic judges are watching.  I’d nailed the compulsories, so this is it, the finals.  I got a 9.8 from the Canadians, a perfect 10 from the Americans, and my mother, disguised as an East German judge, gave me a 5.6.  Must have been the dismount.”
—Harry Burns (Billy Crystal), When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

…58…59…60.