Why Ilana Kaplan Still Thinks There's Hope for Romantic Comedies

Much like other hallmarks of the 20th century—print media, MTV, quality knitwear—romantic comedies are in a slump. Once a box office behemoth, the genre’s gross revenue has been on a steady decline since 2010 as film studios continue to cast aside mid-budget genre films in favor of large franchises. Even with the success of last year’s Anyone But You, rom-com blockbusters are few and far between. It doesn’t help that many rom-com releases have been splintered across streaming platforms.

Still, many agree that the industry isn't the only reason that romantic comedies are in trouble. Even in the few romantic comedies that do get made, a certain magic is missing. Some blame casting and the absence of sexual chemistry among co-stars. Others blame the dreariness of modern dating—after all, swiping right on Tinder is no meet-cute. But the problem may ultimately be about one person. The death of Nora Ephron, the brilliant mind behind When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, and other classics of the form, has left a void that has yet to be filled. Ephron imbued every aspect of her films with intrigue, from the witty sparring between her leads to the romantic treatment of New York City’s bustling landscape. In her new book, Nora Ephron at the Movies, pop culture writer Ilana Kaplan explores the legendary filmmaker’s impact on rom-coms and cinema as a whole. She describes Ephron as “the fairy godmother of modern rom-coms.”

Shortly after the 35th anniversary of When Harry Met Sally this summer, Kaplan and I met at a café in Brooklyn to discuss her book, the state of the rom-com, and who—if anyone—is the next Nora Ephron.

Everyone puts ‘90s and 2000s rom-coms on a pedestal, but Nora Ephron is singular in that she's the first and maybe only screenwriter that you think of when you think of this genre. Why do you think that is?

A lot of it is because she was such a singular voice at the time. I feel like, until recent years, there were very few distinct female filmmakers who had such an illustrious career. I think what was appealing to people was the way she portrayed women in those movies. She was known for character-driven films, but also for messy, flawed female protagonists who were very high maintenance, who weren't afraid to push back on male chauvinism and who also could express their sexuality – as we know from When Harry Met Sally—and start those conversations.

I think people have brought up, “Who do you think is the Nora Ephron of now?” I don't know if there's an answer to that. I don't think there is one. I think she was very singular in what she did. I think there are other female directors, and especially people of color who are female directors, who are pushing the needle in different ways. As much as Nora is beloved, there were limitations to her work too.

Your book charts the different eras of the rom-com, from screwball comedies in the Golden age to the era of sexual liberation, and then this dormant period before Nora Ephron comes on the scene. What era of the rom-com do you think we're in right now?

I feel like we're in the buddy rom-com era. Maybe this is just what's on my mind today, but I feel like we've been seeing a lot of senior buddy rom-coms. They're hybrid rom-coms, but also movies about female friendships. The Fabulous Four or Poms or Book Club. I think in recent years those have become really fun. But also, beyond that, Someone Great was, I guess you could also say, the breakup rom-com too, which also hearkens back to Nora because Heartburn, you could say, is a breakup rom-com. Someone Great, for instance, that's such a beautiful breakup rom-com movie, and it's also a movie about friendship.

Yeah, definitely! What you're talking about with the buddy rom-com, I think that Do Revenge is also such an interesting addition to that. Even though the two main characters never really are together, it feels very homoerotic. And then Drive Away Dolls is a really good example, too.

Yeah. I haven't seen Drive Away Dolls yet, but I need to.

You haven't?

I know! It's on Peacock. I'm going to watch it.

I saw it in the movie theaters, which actually is a good segue into my next question. I feel like what's also very different about today is that, with a few exceptions, there aren't many blockbuster hits that are rom-coms anymore. Do you think that what also made Nora Ephron's movies so special is the fact that they came out at a time when everyone went to the movies and it was a shared experience?

I totally think that's a big part of it. For a while, especially in, I want to say, the mid-2010s, there weren’t many rom-coms that were really taking off. So [studios] have been hesitant for a while, I think, to bring them back to theaters. I don't think there was ever a lack of wanting them from people. It's about the studios. So we saw Anyone But You did so well.

So well, and no one really thought it would do well. Everyone thought it was kind of a joke. The whole lead-up was kind of surprising.

Yeah. I loved The Idea of You, and I think that was straight to Amazon, which I think was a huge mistake.

Huge mistake.

I saw it months before because I did a story for GQ on the making of the boy band. But I saw it back in November of last year, and I was like, “This is a really great straight-up rom-com. I'm going to be watching it for years.” I think that Anyone But You kind of set this new precedent that I hope we're going to see more rom-coms at the movies.

What was the perception of Ephron while she was at her peak?

Hmm. There's a good Rachel Syme essay in The New Yorker about this, but the way we remember Nora Ephron is much sweeter than she actually was. She was quite prickly. I think at her height she was a force to be reckoned with, and she was a really hard worker, and she had strong opinions—that was who she was at the time, and people who were there during that time remember that. But I think now people often forget that aspect of her personality when we're waxing poetic about her work. She cultivated a really interesting environment of creatives and threw these dinner parties, and I feel like she was really a Renaissance woman of the time.

What do you think about When Harry Met Sally? I’m assuming you love it, but that may not be the case.

No, I do. If I had to do a ranking of Nora Ephron's trio of rom-coms, it’s You've Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless in Seattle.

Thank you for that, because that is literally my ranking. You've Got Mail is, honestly, in the sky for me. No one talks about that movie enough.

I love it too. It's basically just a commentary on late-stage capitalism. If you ignore the fact that he's technically a Republican CEO, their chemistry is so good!

I think that the dialogue in When Harry Met Sally is so good, and I think that When Harry Met Sally was such a revolutionary film at the time, in the way that it discussed male and female relationships and whether or not they could be friends. But also, at the end of the movie, it's like, well, can they? Really, to me, the message was that friendship is the best basis of any romantic relationship. But it also started that conversation about female sexuality and created that whole orgasm scene at Katz's Deli and that conversation like, “Oh, okay, how many women actually do fake their orgasms?" and it's like, “Oh, all of them.” That was an interesting and rude awakening for a lot of men.

I think it created, over time, this change in movies where we saw a different side to women and the way that they portrayed their sexuality. Sally Albright is uptight, but she's really messy and flawed and high maintenance, but pretends she's low maintenance, as Harry says. It became refreshing to see less polished women as leads in films.

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There's a lot of conversation on what those '90s rom-coms do wrong. I'm wondering your thoughts on that too.

As someone who spent two years looking at Nora's work, the biggest gap that I saw was there's next to no people of color in her film. Dave Chappelle is in You've Got Mail but as a side character. She was very white feminist. It's very clear re-watching her work that she had a very narrow view. What she was doing at the time was seen as progressive, but it wasn't intersectional. I think that you can appreciate her work and she can be one of your favorite filmmakers, but you can also see that there were blind spots. I think that what people appreciate about the rom-com evolving now is you do see a lot more diversity. You're seeing more diverse writers and filmmakers. There's a lot of people that were ignored and weren't in her films, so as much as you can appreciate them, you can also be critical of her missteps.

Yeah, for sure. What do you think the state of the rom-com is now, and how do you think it's going to move forward? Are you hopeful?

I think that Anyone But You really opened up this avenue for studios to really put money towards more rom-coms. I don't know if they will do that. But that said, it did show that there is a huge audience for them. It depends on who the stars are. It depends on the concept. But, again, we're relying a lot of times on people with money who don't really care about the actual script to be marketing that. Creatively, I think we're in an interesting time for the rom-com because we're seeing movies like The Idea of You be insanely successful. Seeing more mature women fall in love has become more beloved by people. I think we're in an interesting time where we can see those creative stories come to life. But the thing is, instead of using the same IP over and over again and recreating a movie from 20 to 60 years ago, we should be going to people who have fresh ideas, some younger writers that have really interesting scripts and also just making sure the casting is diverse and interesting. I think the problem is being beholden to the studios.

After watching all the Nora Ephron movies again, including the non-romcom ones, what's your perspective on her now, and how did that change?

I think what I pick up on now and what I relate to now is different from the overall romance story. I think I pay attention more to the dialogue and the banter. I think that speaks to all of Nora's work and what I got out of them. Not every script was funny, but I think that in her best movies what I loved re-watching was the banter, the dialogue, the writing. I don't think I was paying attention to the writing years ago. I wasn't as plot-focused [while researching] as I once was. I was more so paying attention to the smaller details and how complex she created these characters, how she wrote them, their little quirks, and that became most interesting to me.