Love And Sex

Trying to make When Harry Met Sally again is a fruitless exercise. There's only one Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan has never stopped playing Sally.

Valerier Breiman wrote the script in three weeks and says it's based on her own experiences, nothing to do with Harry, or High Fidelity, for that matter, which covers some of the same ground.

Relationships? Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. And when you run out of ideas as a filmmaker, stick a soft rock ballad on the soundtrack and do a montage of lovers frolicking.

The art of the frolic is as important as finding somewhere other than the stairs to do it. One thing that comes out of this movie is what you know already - humour is an aphrodisiac. It doesn't matter what you look like, fellas, as long as you can make the lady laugh.

Sex is fine, but when you get bored, you start noticing those annoying habits and if your partner's as wet as lettuce, shake loose.

The other thing you learn is that breaking up may be hard to do, but when it comes to the inevitable reunion, you've done the difficult bit already. You've been through the "we're like a married couple" sex-on-hold tedious phase and you're back because you want to be back and, anyway, no one else matches up.

Famke Janssen is more spunky than Meg Ryan and Jon Favreau more laid back than Billy Crystal. She works for a New Woman magazine, which means writing about orgasms, and he's an artist, painting grotesque, mutilated figures on canvas.

They become best friends as well as lovers, which is the other thing you learn. Best friends is good. Better than fantastic sex all over the house, followed by "Who is this person?"

Despite a strong performance from Janssen in a role she can do something with for a change, with huggy-feely support from the man who wrote Swingers, the film is equivalent to easy listening. If love comes down to snappy one-liners and "sex is the fastest way to erase the past", celibacy takes on a whole new meaning.