Meg Ryan Will Make Her Return To Rom-Coms
What do all of my favorite romantic comedies of the ’80s and ’90s have in common? Meg Ryan! When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle... hell, I even liked French Kiss. But it’s been awhile since Meg starred in a rom-com. There’s been some VOD shit, but her last proper one was Kate & Leopold (2001). But worry not, Megophiles. Fresh off from Julia Roberts’ return to rom-coms, 60-year-old Meg is making her triumphant return to the genre with What Happens Later, co-starring David Duchovny.
Variety reports that Meg will both star and direct the film, which is an “evolved and nostalgic” take on romantic comedies. She also co-wrote the screenplay, alongside novelist Kirk Lynn and American playwright Steven Dietz, who wrote “Shooting Star”, the play the movie is based on. Production will begin later this year in Bentonville, Arkansas, and the studio Bleecker Street is planning for a 2023 release. Here’s the logline for the movie, which poses a very serious question:
“What if late one snowy night you came face to face with someone from your long ago? Someone who once held your secrets, because once, long ago, that person held your heart.”
Whoa. Intense. The movie will follow Willa (Meg) and Bill (David), ex-lovers who are reunited at a snowed-in airports decades after they split:
Willa is still the wilful, independent spirit she once was, free of any ties, while the recently separated Bill is reassessing his life and his relationships with his estranged wife and daughter. All each of them wants is to get home but over the course of the night they find themselves at first reluctantly drawn together yet compelled to revisit their past, along with what could have been and what might well be again. But when the versions of their shared history don’t quite add up, where do they go from there?
Another very serious question. Hmmm. I believe the answer is: they fuck on the baggage conveyer belt and end up happily ever after! Here’s Meg’s Instagram post about the movie, which will be her second time directing (the first was 2015’s Ithaca):
I really hope that’s not the movie’s actual poster, cuz the blurry object on the right looks like a tiny brontosaurus. And I’m guessing it’s probably supposed to be luggage. Or, hell, maybe it is meant to be a dinosaur, and What Happens Later is set to be the weirdest rom com since Simply Irresistible (1999) and that magic crab!
Pic: ABACA USA/INSTARimages.com