{"id":16221,"date":"2021-03-31T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=16221"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:14:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:14:47","slug":"why-we-miss-meg-ryan-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/why-we-miss-meg-ryan-so-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Miss Meg Ryan So Much"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Meg Ryan found her breakout role as Sally Albright in When Harry Met Sally. . .<\/em>, a character Harry (Billy Crystal) accuses of being a cheerful person who \u201cdots their I\u2019s with little hearts.\u201d Sally replies, \u201cI have just as much of a dark side as the next person\u201d; the same could be said of Ryan, whose star persona projects an affability that many mistake for her true self.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meg Ryan didn\u2019t intend to be an actress. She studied journalism in college and paid the bills acting in commercials. She left NYU a semester before graduating after landing a two year arc on As The World Turns<\/em>. When asked how she wound up an actress, she replied<\/a>, \u201csometimes your life seems to choose you a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a child of the \u201890s, my youth was defined by the holy trinity of the rom-com actresses: Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, and Meg Ryan. Roberts and Bullock have both kept going, winning Oscars for roles that set them against the rom-com America\u2019s Sweetheart type that made their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan herself attributes the \u201cvicious\u201d criticism of her against-type role in Jane Campion\u2019s In the Cut <\/em>as a major turning point in her career. What\u2019s so strange in retrospect is this was not as against type as it seemed. Before When Harry Met Sally. . .<\/em>, Ryan played a gun-toting wild girl with pink hair in the 1987 indie hit Promised Land<\/em>. Much was made of co-star Mark Ruffalo\u2019s deflowering of Ryan in In The Cut<\/em>, but her tits were out more than a decade earlier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, for every crowd-pleasing \u201890s rom-com like Sleepless In Seattle<\/em>, I.Q.<\/em>, or French Kiss<\/em>, Ryan made dramas like The Doors, Courage Under<\/em> Fire<\/em>, and Flesh and Bone<\/em>. Even within the rom-com genre she pushed boundaries \u2013  in her first outing with Tom Hanks, 1990\u2019s Joe Versus The Volcano<\/em>, <\/em>she played three distinct, wholly realized characters. In 1992\u2019s Prelude To A Kiss<\/em>, she played a wide-eyed bohemian socialist who body-swaps with a brassy old man. She earned a Screen Actor\u2019s Guild nomination, her only major accolade for a non-comedic role, as a recovering alcoholic in 1994\u2019s romantic drama When A Man Loves A Woman<\/em>. Years earlier Ryan helped her partner Dennis Quaid kick his cocaine habit. You can feel her authenticity in every choice she makes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So why, with such a range, do we still think of her most fondly from her rom-com days? For me it\u2019s comfort; there is just something incredibly cozy about a romantic comedy. The leads will meet-cute, there will be some obstacles, but by the end all will be well. In her films, not only do we get the comfort of knowing all will be well, we also get the beguiling pleasure of Ryan leading us to that happy ending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of that pleasure is found in her voice. There is a warmth to it. She speaks with a distinct timbre. She tends to end her sentences with the emphasis rising; it\u2019s melodic and mesmerising. She\u2019s also a generous screen partner, full of empathy. Her frequent co-star Tom Hanks told Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a> <\/em>in 1995 that \u201cshe absorbs a lot,\u201d and you can feel it. You see in her eyes that when a co-star is talking she is listening \u2013 really<\/em> listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of When A Man Loves A Woman<\/em>, her husband (played by Andy Garcia) notes that she has 600 different kinds of smiles. In his review of You\u2019ve Got Mail<\/em>, Roger Ebert described her as having \u201cmore winning smiles than most people have expressions.\u201d Even in a film as bleak as 1998\u2019s Hurlyburly,<\/em> Ryan is all smiles. In the Hollywood satire she plays an addict who uses her body to get what she wants out of life – namely drugs. This same exuberant energy we see in her rom-coms, subverted through the mania of addiction. Why do accept it when this energy is coming in the form of a rom-com heroine, and not a character we\u2019re more likely to actually meet? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the media storm that was the dissolution of her marriage to Quaid, misattributed to an affair with Proof of Life<\/em> co-star Russell Crowe, she made her last high profile rom-com, 2001\u2019s Kate & Leopold<\/em>. The cold reception of In The Cut<\/em> followed. Then came one of her true missteps. Against The Ropes<\/em>, a biopic of boxing promoter Jackie Kallen in which she seems to lose her trademark conviction. Ryan then goes through the motions in a string of ill-conceived comedies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one exception – The Women<\/em> – had the misfortune of being released on the heels of the widely popular Sex and the City<\/em> movie. Written and directed by Diane English, Ryan had been attached to play the lead for fifteen years. The film works when it\u2019s trying to be its own thing, not re-create the magic of its 1939 namesake. Just as her character in the film, it\u2019s clear Ryan is ready for a new phase in her life. As the film comes to an end she confides in her girlfriends that for her the real question is not can we have it all, but rather, do you want it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ryan was often compared to Doris Day. And like Day, when Ryan hit a certain age and fewer interesting projects came her way, she walked away from Hollywood. When asked about her departure in 2019, she told the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, \u201cI think the feeling with Hollywood was mutual. I felt done when they felt done, probably.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan left Los Angeles for New York the weekend her son Jack went off to college, choosing to spend her time raising daughter Daisy, whom she adopted in 2006. Fittingly, that the only two films she\u2019s made since 2009 are about motherhood. The 2015 television film Fan Girl<\/em> starring Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men<\/em>, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina<\/em>) is best left for competelists. Worth seeking out though is her directorial debut, the WW2-set Ithaca<\/em>, an adaptation of the 1943 novel The Human Comedy<\/em> by William Saroyan. Ryan cast Jack, now an actor like his parents, as a son sent off to war. While the film doesn\u2019t always succeed, Ryan\u2019s exploration of motherhood through a story about sons finds moments of true poignancy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about the romantic comedies? Well, she\u2019s currently at work on a rom-com script she hopes to direct. For her many fans, her presence in the genre is as comforting as a Nancy Meyers kitchen, her warmth and light allowing for a little escape. Describing her legacy as a comfort staple for people, she said \u201cmovies have funny places in people\u2019s lives.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the denouement of City of Angels<\/em>, Ryan\u2019s character Dr. Maggie Rice tells fallen angel Seth (Nicolas Cage), \u201cWe were made to fit together.\u201d That\u2019s how it feels when you watch Meg Ryan on screen: it\u2019s as if she was made for it. There\u2019s a sincerity she brings to her performances that can\u2019t be faked, an irrepressible confidence she imbues in them, and a light that she shines on those who share a scene with her. She\u2019s got a beguiling spark that is hers and hers alone. Whether she returns to our screens again or not, we\u2019ll always have the films she did make, and that\u2019s better than an eternity without them. \"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The queen of ’90s rom-coms has fallen out of Hollywood’s favor – and we’re all poorer for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":16225,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381],"tags":[162],"class_list":["post-16221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22338,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16221\/revisions\/22338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}