Meg Ryan finds the humour in romantic longing without making the person doing the longing ridiculous. We rate that judgement highly, even when the films around her press harder for our affection than they need to.
Fi1m perspective
In Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Meg Ryan gives Annie Reed's longing enough humour to stop it becoming a nuisance. Wanting this much can be difficult to watch, especially when a film is so reluctant to question it. Ryan lets us recognise the excess while keeping us on Annie's side. We were touched by her because the humour made the tenderness feel earned. Tom Hanks's Sam Baldwin has other things on his mind, and that contrast gives Ryan the more exposed job: making the wanting bearable.
When Harry Met Sally... (1989) made her a star as Sally Albright. Its deli sequence gives a conspicuous example of her precise comic timing. Through the 1990s, she became a leading romantic-comedy actor, frequently working with Hanks and Nora Ephron. You've Got Mail (1998), in which she plays Kathleen Kelly, belongs to that run. It is easy to remember the charm and take the timing for granted.
Ephron gets good work from Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle, but the film does not always know when to leave its actors alone. Marc Shaiman's music sometimes tells us how to respond before they have had their chance. Hanks and Ryan can suggest tenderness without that instruction, and the quieter humour needs even less assistance. The leisurely pace and firm belief in destiny also ask for indulgence. Ryan makes the romance worth that indulgence, but her comic judgement is often sounder than the film's.
The dramatic roles in When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) and Courage Under Fire (1996) came during that romantic-comedy run. Jane Campion's In the Cut (2003), with Ryan as Frannie Avery, pushed further from the familiar heroine into an erotic thriller. The resistance it met from audiences and critics is no reason to wish she had stayed put. She later made her feature directing debut with Ithaca (2015), then wrote, directed and starred in What Happens Later (2023). Start with Sleepless in Seattle if romantic comedy is your sort of evening, and be prepared to forgive the music.
Biography
Meg Ryan is an American actress. Born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra on 19 November 1961 in Fairfield, Connecticut, she attended New York University before leaving to pursue acting. She made her screen debut in Rich and Famous (1981) and appeared on the soap opera As the World Turns from 1982 to 1984.
Ryan gained prominence with supporting roles in Top Gun (1986) and Innerspace (1987). Her performance as Sally Albright in When Harry Met Sally... (1989) brought wider recognition. She starred in numerous romantic comedies, including Sleepless in Seattle (1993) as Annie Reed, You've Got Mail (1998) as Kathleen Kelly, and Kate & Leopold (2001). She made her directorial debut with Ithaca (2015).
Ryan was married to actor Dennis Quaid from 1991 to 2001.
