Nora Ephron movies are timeless and perfect

There are some movies that can be watched over and over again and never lose their magic.

For me, those are Nora Ephron movies — the ones that are always on cable and usually involve Meg Ryan falling in love.

There are plenty of new movies out that I could see, but after deciding to watch You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle in the same week, I have become convinced that Ephron’s world full of chance meetings and hilarious monologue can’t be topped. I tend to get very invested in characters in both movies and TV shows, and I usually end up sitting by myself on my couch crying during the emotional scenes, just like all the women talking about An Affair to Remember during Sleepless in Seattle. I am part of the demographic of single women that Ephron catered to, and she did it so well.

It is hard to pin down her writing on one particular group of people when Ephron, who passed away in June, was able to connect to pretty much everyone.  There’s something about each of these movies that makes me want to believe that life can be that perfect, even if there is a very tiny, if not impossible chance, of my life replicating any of these movies.

Sleepless in Seattle hits pretty close to home for me because sometimes, I see myself as Meg Ryan’s character, whose friend accuses her of not wanting to be in love, but to be in love in a movie. While I doubt that I will ever get the guts to hear a voice on the radio and then fly across the country to find that voice, it’s nice to know that someone thinks that it’s possible. It’s also heartbreaking to hear Tom Hanks’s character talk about how finding his wife was like magic, though it serves as a message to Meg Ryan and every other woman that they don’t have to settle, that being in love isn’t about everything being perfect on paper. It’s about feeling like you’re “home.” I’m also pretty obsessed with the kid who plays Tom Hanks’s son in the movie, who unfortunately does not act anymore.

When I watch You’ve Got Mail, I focus far more on the bookstore than the romantic relationship, though obviously I leave the movie ecstatic when Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks finally end up together. This movie, however, is somehow able to reach straight into my childhood and mention the books that defined it (the Betsy-Tacy series and Ballet Shoes). It always leaves me wanting to move to New York so I can open my own bookstore and do nothing but dream all day.

When Harry Met Sally, however, is my favorite story, and not just because Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan have hilarious scenes throughout the movie. This is the movie that shows that Nora Ephron really understands what people are going through, and it’s all thanks to director Robert Reiner. He originally didn’t want Harry and Sally to end up together because he had gone through a divorce and didn’t really believe in the whole happily-ever-after thing anymore. And then, while working on the movie, he met his second wife and changed the ending. It doesn’t get better than that.

Those movies were written twenty years ago, and both dating and everyday life may be slightly different now. It’s hard to imagine any guy topping Billy Crystal’s monologue in When Harry Met Sally, but not everything in movies needs to be completely realistic. Besides, it’s not as if Ephron didn’t bring considerable life experiences into her screenplays, and she doesn’t make everything end perfectly. Heartburn, starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, is all about how Carl Bernstein (of the infamous Woodward and Bernstein) cheated on Ephron. All of her romantic comedies involve failed relationships as well as the ones that fit seamlessly together.

While many people may think that all of this is beyond cheesy, it’s not going to stop me from shutting myself in my apartment, eating a ridiculous amount of food, watching every single Nora Ephron movie ever made, and then getting depressed that she won’t be around to continue to write scenes that are exactly what I want to watch.

It’ll be okay though, because the movies she made will never get old.