The Big Picture
From the iconic When Harry Met Sally with Billy Crystal, French Kiss with Kevin Kline, to her love trilogy with Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle, You Got Mail, and Joe vs. the Volcano, the iconic comedic genius, Meg Ryan, is finally making her comeback to Hollywood on Nov. 3rd with a new rom-com titled What Happens Later. The now 61-year-old actress co-wrote, directed and stars in the film next to X-Files’s David Duchovny. After an 8-year hiatus, Ryan’s return to the screen is not only proving her tireless passion for filmmaking, but it is also a major testament against the ageist mentality in Hollywood. Loyal fans are overjoyed with the news, though it might take some time for the actress to reclaim her shadowed title to the newer generation of cinephiles.
Once considered the “Queen of Romantic Comedies” during the ’80s and ’90s, Meg Ryan has dozens of accomplished credits to her name with only 10 being categorized as romantic comedies. She was a victim of typecasting, often playing the role of your typical “girl next door”. This led to her branching out to appear in more serious roles like in When a Man Loves a Woman and In the Cut. Soon after, Ryan fell out of love with the limelight and took a leave from acting. Ryan never won an Academy Award for her outstanding talents which is quite a disappointment in her field. The versatile actress will always have a distinctive voice in cinema for popularizing the American rom-com genre alongside the legendary filmmaker Nora Ephron. But why is Meg Ryan such an underappreciated actress, and what does her spontaneous comeback symbolize in the film industry?
Two ex lovers, Bill (David Duchovny) and Willa (Meg Ryan) get snowed in at a regional airport overnight. Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier. But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted. – Bleecker Street
How Did Meg Ryan Get Her Start in Rom-Coms?
From the late ’80s to the beginning of the 2000s, Meg Ryan’s career was undisputedly booming! Her acting filmography consists of 30-something films that paved the way for her budding profession as “America’s Sweetheart” (a title she did not favor). The actress was born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra in Fairfield, Connecticut and later changed her name when she joined the Screen Actors Guild. Studying journalism in college, she admits to never wanting to be an actress in an interview with ET she shared, “I didn’t really aim to be an actor,” she noted. “I was a journalism major at school, and a curious person, and I wanted to go back out into the world and figure out who I was — am — in relation to other things and other people and other environments.” In 1981, she debuted in Rich and Famous, director George Cukor’s final film, as teenager Debby Blake. Afterward, Ryan dabbled in a few TV commercials and then landed a cameo appearance as Carole Bradshaw, the wife of Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, in Top Gun. It was her breakthrough, leading role in When Harry Met Sally that changed Ryan’s career forever.
Co-starring with the quick-witted Billy Crystal, When Harry Met Sally marked Ryan’s first collaboration with Nora Ephron and acclaimed director Rob Reiner in her renowned role as Sally Albright. The film was groundbreaking for its hilariously relatable dialogue, unbeatable chemistry, and jazzy musical score all surrounding the question can men and women ever just be friends? In the real Katz’s Delicatessen in Manhattan, Ryan performs her most famous scene in her career when Sally fakes an orgasm to prove a point to Harry, earning her worldwide recognition. Ryan was accredited as the one to suggest the skit be shot in a restaurant, and today it’s considered one of the most memorable scenes in movie history! The “I’ll have what she’s having” classic became culturally, and historically significant, rocketing Meg Ryan’s rom-com career to stardom!
Meg Ryan’s Film Successes Were Never Consistent
One key element to Meg Ryan’s underappreciated career lies in the fact that her film successes were never consistent. Following the triumph of When Harry Met Sally, Meg Ryan starred in a few flops — Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), which later became a cult film, and Prelude to the Kiss (1992) — until she collaborated again with Nora Ephron, Rob Reiner, and Tom Hanks in the top-rated rom-com drama, Sleepless in Seattle.
The story broke the traditional blueprint of romance and deconstructed the genre. The characters openly discuss the absurdity of romantic tropes presented in movies like An Affair to Remember. Ryan’s character, Annie, is a perfect example as her motivations are heavily influenced by the 1957 film starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, leading her to question whether she is happy with her already stable life. What fans loved most about Ryan’s portrayal is she took a spin on the mundane, everyday life and made her comedy relatable for all women who wish they could experience a cinematic love. “You don’t want to be in love; you want to be in love in a movie.” Ephron was praised for her brilliant writing style of building up the characters separately instead of focusing on the “chemistry” between the protagonists; Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan never actually meet until the ending, and the film is crowned to be one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time!
At this point, Meg Ryan had crafted a solid reputation as the top leading ladies of the ’90s. The multi-talented actress brought a surprise to audiences with a more serious personality in When a Man Loves a Woman. Starring Andy Garcia, Ryan portrays a high-school guidance counselor suffering from alcoholism. Critics highly praised Ryan for bringing a rollercoaster of emotions to such a “touchy” subject, earning her first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. A year later, she returned to romance as a broken-hearted, American tourist in French Kiss alongside Kevin Kline — this film gave her the image of America’s Sweetheart. You Got Mail (1998) became her third body of work with Tom Hanks and Nora Ephron, and Ryan’s outstanding portfolio was undeniably expanding the role of women within the entertainment industry.
In the late ’90s, Meg Ryan was booked to be in moodier romantic dramas such as the speaking voice of Anastasia and the American remake of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, City of Angels with Nicholas Cage. These roles were all received positively worldwide; however, as the 2000s approached she gradually drifted away from her rom-com roots to work in independent films, leading to an interest in directing.
Why Did Meg Ryan Leave Hollywood?
At some point in their career, most artists can attest to experiencing burnout from creating the same type of material over and over again. The itch for an artist to dip their toes into a new body of work is nothing to be frowned upon, and sometimes a change makes their work even more dazzling. For Meg Ryan, this was just the case. At the beginning of the early 2000s, Ryan’s rom-com credits dwindled over the years, and the actress started to branch out into more dramatic gigs. Sadly, this choice would eventually contribute to her downfall.
In 2003, Ryan’s role in In the Cut received backlash. The erotic thriller tells the story of Frannie Avery, played by Ryan, who witnesses a sexual assault to a murder by a killer on the loose. Frannie develops a passionate affair with the detective on the case (Mark Ruffalo), but her trust starts to waver as the authority of the male gaze becomes stronger. The film contains very graphic sex scenes between Ryan and Ruffalo which shocked her fans. Despite both actors appearing nude, Meg Ryan was the only one who faced backlash and slut-shaming — according to the New Zealand Herald. Ryan showed the world a more humanistic and deeply personal side to a character she rarely plays, breaking her good-girl archetype. In the Cut ultimately failed critically.
Meg Ryan didn’t stop there. She continued her pursuit to challenge herself through various genre projects, but the press began to turn on her altogether. From a controversial, invasive interview on British host Michael Parkinson’s talk show to becoming a victim of Hollywood’s extremely ageist community, Ryan stood up for herself and pushed forward to star in a sports drama (Against the Ropes), a comedy crime film (My Mom’s New Boyfriend), and an independent, ABC Family feature (Fan Girl). She took multiple hiatuses between these movies, and barely any were commercial hits like her ’80s and ’90s flicks.
2015 marked Meg Ryan’s directorial debut with Ithaca, starring herself, Tom Hanks once again, and Alex Neustaedter. Based on the 1943 novel The Human Comedy by William Saroyandrama, the World War II-era drama was viewed as an unfocused jumble that fell out of favor with fans and critics. Meg Ryan was being judged for the type of films she would appear in rather than her overall body of work. After the box-office failure of Ithaca, the once Queen of Rom-Coms disappeared from Hollywood to focus on her family and to support her son’s acting career. In an exclusive interview with People Magazine, Meg Ryan reveals why she took a “giant break” from the spotlight, saying, “I took a giant break because I felt like there’s just so many other parts of my experience as a human being I wanted to develop,” she told the publication. “It’s nice to think of it as a job and not a lifestyle. And that is a great way of navigating it for me”
What makes a romantic comedy? Is it the cheesy pickup lines, the “it-could-happen-to-you” predicaments, or the awkward morning after a one-night stand? Well, it’s all of these things combined with the simple plot of two people navigating the trials and tribulations of a romantic relationship. From the humble beginnings of William Shakespeare, rom-coms are one of the most popular genres in film. Theaters used to fill seats for romantic comedies, especially during its golden age in the ’80s and ’90s. Now, they don’t perform nearly as well.
Today, a rom-com is a risk in Hollywood. Crazy Rich Asians has been one of the few commercial breakthroughs in years. Audiences are more accustomed to CGI-saturated stories, like Marvel movies, or more dramatic biopics like The Theory of Everything. After an 8-year hiatus, Meg Ryan’s comeback with What Happens Later is symbolic for the genre and for the future of women directors in Hollywood. It’s wrong to say there is a potential to bring back her title as the “Queen of Romantic Comedies” because she always will be! She’s proving that anyone can still be themselves and fight back against stereotypes in the film industry. So far, critics are welcoming Ryan’s picture with open arms — the film is a comfort food for the upcoming holiday season. Meg Ryan’s return is just what Hollywood needs most: a passionate, multitalented, leading lady with the smarts to keep audiences coming back to theaters for good-needed belly laughs and heartwarming stories for all.
What Happens Later is out in theaters now in the U.S.
