The “deceptively simple” movie Meg Ryan cherishes: “Really interesting on a lot of levels”
The romantic comedy genre has always been a staple in the industry, with movies like It Happened One Night and Bringing Up Baby emerging in the 1930s and soon becoming essential entries in the rom-com canon. Yet, as cinema and humour have evolved over the years, so have rom-coms, and by the 1990s and early 2000s, they reached their golden era, dominating both the box office and popular consciousness.
We can thank When Harry Met Sally, released in 1989, for helping to kickstart this period of rom-com superiority, which grossed a fairly sizable $92.8 million and earned significant acclaim. With the will-they-won’t-they relationship between Harry and Sally panning out over the course of several years, you really become attached to these characters, flaws and all. Billy Crystal is fantastic as Harry Burns, who is opinionated and often a bit negative, while Sally Albright, played by Meg Ryan, possesses much more lightness, and they perfectly balance each other out.
Ryan’s performance was well-praised, and soon she was the face of many other rom-coms through the coming years, with leading roles in movies like French Kiss, Kate & Leopold, Addicted to Love, and, of course, several iconic collaborations with Tom Hanks, including Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail.
These two are the ones that fans seem to love most – both were directed by Nora Ephron, who also penned When Harry Met Sally, and they tick all of the rom-com boxes. Well-written and full of chemistry, the movies have become lauded as some of the best romantic comedies ever made, further helping to cement Ryan’s status as a queen of the genre.
Yet, Hanks and Ryan first collaborated on another rom-com that hardly receives as much discussion, although it’s one that the latter absolutely loves. In 1990, shortly after the release of When Harry Met Sally, Ryan appeared in Joe Versus the Volcano, which received a much more mixed reception from critics. Perhaps the fact that the movie doesn’t exactly sound like a rom-com and more like a kids’ film didn’t help it.
Discussing the film with Richmond Magazine, the actor said, “I love that movie. It’s such a deceptively simple movie. It was so fun to do that one, too.” Not only did Ryan enjoy the experience of shooting the film, but she also thinks that the filmmaker behind it deserves more recognition.
“I played three characters in it, but the guy who wrote and directed it is an unbelievable playwright, John Patrick Shanley, who then wrote Doubt later, he won an Oscar for Moonstruck,” she added. “He’s just a really, really talented guy, a really fun guy to be around, too. And I think that movie is, in fact, a union fairy tale. It’s a really interesting movie on a lot of levels.”
Joe Versus the Volcano was Shanley’s directorial debut, coming just a few years after his ‘Best Original Screenplay’ Oscar win for Moonstruck, starring Cher and Nicolas Cage. It might not have endured like Moonstruck has, but Ryan believes that the movie was a great one that deserves to be appreciated much more.
