Saturday, January 6, 2024

Book 3 of 2024: I'll Have What She's Having: How Nora Ephron's Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy

I just finished this book with the very long title and I give it ☆☆☆.

I'll Have What She's Having by Erin Carlson is a non-fiction book that examines Ephron's three films with Meg Ryan: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You've Got Mail. Ephron died in 2012, and this book was published in 2018, so there's no first hand evidence from Ephron but the author uses published interviews along with interviews of others involved in the films to discuss how these films are 'iconic' (which I only partially agree with: I think the first two are iconic, You've Got Mail not so much) and how they 'saved' the romantic comedy (again, I don't think it was those films, I think it was Meg Ryan and to some degree Tom Hanks, but whatever).

Anyway, the book moves in chronological order and is kind of a mishmash of how Ephron approached the script and the production, what was happening in the personal lives of the actors in the films, what kind of issues they ran into in the making with the movies, and the like. It isn't gossipy enough to keep you reading and there's a lot of stuff that has nothing, really, to do with any of the movies. 

I read til the end but it was a bit of a slog; I tend to read non-fiction before bed and this one put me to sleep every time I read it. 

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