Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

Running Head: GENDER RESPONSE PAPER: WHEN HARRY MET SALLY 

Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

[name of the writer]

[name of the institution ]

[name of the Professor]

[Course]

.

1

Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

Introduction:

Harry and Sally met when she gives him a ride to New York after they both graduate from

the University of Chicago. The film jumps through their lives as they both search for love,

but fail, bumping into each other time and time again. Finally a close friendship blooms

between them, and they both like having a friend of the opposite sex. But then they are

confronted with the problem: "Can a man and a woman be friends, without sex getting in the

way?" (When Harry Met Sally___ (1989) - Plot summary

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098635/plotsummary)

The movie presents a wonderful explanation of the Knapp and Vangelisti’s Ten-Stage Model

of Relationship. A synopsis of the movie on the basis of this model is presented here. Some

stages are repeated more than once whereas some are out of sequence, but they are written

mainly on the basis of succession of happenings in the story line.

Stage # 1: Initiating:

The first stage starts when Harry was traveling with Sally on their way to New York. He

started a routine idle chat and soon the talk moved towards a direction which may be

considered as rather “personal” by many. He started getting the same sort of stereotypical

feelings about Sally that he is the one who should start a relationship with her. So he started a

probe in her past and in the mean time also tries to degrade her boyfriend. Then he suddenly

started praising her beauty. This was the beginning of the next stage.

Stage # 2: Experimenting:

The second stage started when Harry and Sally met after a gap of six years in a book store.

(Their previous encounter happened in a plane where they shared their future plans. Harry

told Sally about his getting married to Helen and Sally revealed her relationship with Joe.)

Both are suffering through similar and tumultuous times in their respective relationships with

2

Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

their partners. The need of the sympathy of someone from the opposite gender who is

considerate and understanding was there. They quickly unloaded what happened to them and

their relationships in past six years. They tried in vain to hide their disappointments in

relationships, but as both of them are facing the same music, the effort didn’t pay off. Later

Harry offered Sally to take her out to movies.

Stage # 3: Intensifying:

Third stage starts with a New Year Eve’s party scene. Both Sally and Harry were dancing

together, cheek to cheek, in an emotional embrace. Four months later, when Harry was

shopping with Sally, they encountered Helen, Harry’s ex-wife. Harry was very enthusiastic in

introducing Sally to her.

Stage # 4: Integrating:

Next stage started when after meeting Helen, Harry tried to flush out his pent-up frustration

on their mutual friends, and then Sally comes to his rescue and made him contemplate over

the issue once again. Harry told Sally that he is feeling very sorry about the whole issue. In

the next scene, Sally got the information of her former boyfriend Joe’s wedding and she

started to wonder why Joe is marrying someone else, when he was so reluctant to marry.

Sally was feeling disowned and humiliated. She sought the help of Harry to come over the

trauma of Joe’s disregard for her. Harry, more than an old friend and acquaintance now,

arrived at once and help her recuperate through the shock of loosing Joe. He told her that Joe

was never reluctant in getting married but it wasn’t she he would’ve liked to marry. They

ended up kissing and then making out in bed.

Stage # 6: Differentiating:

There comes a period of differentiation when they realized that they didn’t liked things the

way they happened. They confided in each other in polite words and started to revamp the

state of their relationship. They reveled to their best friends (i.e. Jess for Harry and Marie for

3

Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

Sally) that they felt “suffocated”, when in bed with each other. Their friends didn’t tried to

hide their disappointment as both of them are now seeing each other consistently and are

viewing a future with each other. They wanted dearly that their best friends also get involved

with each other on permanent basis.

Stage # 7: Circumscribing:

At the wedding ceremony of their friends Jess and Marie, both Sally and Harry started small

talk. Pleasantries and polite words were exchanged and they behaved like two small-time

acquaintances who had nothing in common and who are meeting after a long time.

Stage # 8: Stagnating:

From there the relationship stagnates as both of them realized there aren’t many things left to

talk about.

Stage # 9: Avoiding:

When Harry called Sally on her phone a few days later, she decided not to pick up the phone.

He called again but she avoided picking up the phone once again.

Stage # 10: Terminating:

On his third attempt he finally managed to make Sally pick up the phone. When Sally asks

Harry to leave her alone by saying, “I can't do this anymore; I am not your consolation prize.

Goodbye.” it was the beginning of the end. It showed that she didn’t want this relationship to

prolong.

Stage # 3: Intensifying:

Then on New Year Eve Harry was wandering alone on the streets of New York, then he

spotted Sally leaving early a party where Jess and Marie had forced her to come. Harry

finally found the courage to admit to Sally that he is in love with her. Sally at first hesitant

and infuriated over what happened between them in past finally succumbed to Harry’s

consistent begging.

4

Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

Stage # 4: Integrating:

This leads to a brief moment of integration when both of them kissed each other and call it a

truce.

Stage # 5: Bonding:

Three months after this incident they got married.

“Harry: Yeah it only took three months.

Sally: Twelve years and three months.”

Conclusion:

Can men and women ever be only friends, without the enticement of sex? This is the question

that this movie had so famously posed – and in the course of events so meticulously

answered. The movie seems have proven its point: men and women can never just "be

friends" - sex is always there.

What is great about the movie is its ability to hone in on stereotypes of character and situation

and offer pithy and hilarious précis of the male-female condition through the sharp teasing

and interaction of its characters. As such, the film is less like a predictable movie and more

like a stand-up routine dealing with life and love in a Big City. The film is still remembered

by many not only for its content, but also for the dexterity of its put-ons and one-liners.

Just think of all the conventions it has in, and skewers: the one-track mind male (Harry); the

sensitive and practical female, repulsed yet intrigued by said male (Sally); the emotionally

unsettled mistress playing the field (Carrie Fisher, who keeps an index card file of "available"

men); the live-ins who can't "commit" (Sally and her ex-boyfriend); women's concern with

middle age and their biological clock ("I'm gonna be 40," weeps Sally. "When?" asks Harry.

"Someday."); the male's tendency to prance out after making love etc.

It takes a clear-eyed, almost cynical view of love and companionship, and creates around it a

charming tapestry of refreshing wit and crunching dialogue.

5

Gender Response Paper: When Harry Met Sally 

Reference

Bole, Greg. When Harry Met Sally (1989) - Plot summary, Retrieved October 18, 2008 from

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098635/plotsummary

When Harry Met Sally (1989) - Screenplays for You - free movie scripts and screenplays,

Retrieved October 18, 2008 from http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?

script=when_harry_met_sally_1989_ts

Dirks, Tim. When Harry Met Sally (1989), Retrieved October 18, 2008 from

http://www.filmsite.org/when.html

When Harry Met Sally_ Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes, Retrieved October 18,

2008 from http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/when_harry_met_sally/

6