Maybe an appreciation of Rob Reiner as a director should start with When Harry Met Sally..., which helped lay the foundation for a romantic comedy boom that lasted for at least 15 years. Wait — no, it should start with Stand By Me, a coming-of-age story that captured a painfully brief moment in the lives of kids. It could start with This Is Spinal Tap, one of the first popular mockumentaries, which has influenced film and television ever since. Or, since awards are important, maybe it should start with Misery, which made Kathy Bates famous and won her an Oscar. How about The American President, which was the proto-West Wing, very much the source material for a TV show that later won 26 Emmys?
On the other hand, maybe in the end, it's all about catchphrases, so maybe it should be A Few Good Men because of "You can't handle the truth!" or The Princess Bride because of "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die." Maybe it's as simple as that: What, of the words you helped bring them, will people pass back and forth to each other like they're showing off trading cards when they hear you're gone?
There is plenty to praise about Reiner's work within the four corners of the screen. He had a tremendous touch with comic timing, so that every punchline got maximum punch. He had a splendid sense of atmosphere, as with the cozy, autumnal New York of When Harry Met Sally..., and the fairytale castles of The Princess Bride. He could direct what was absurdist and silly, like Spinal Tap. He could direct what was grand and thundering, like A Few Good Men. He could direct what was chatty and genial, like Michael Douglas' staff in The American President discussing whether or not he could get out of the presidential limo to spontaneously buy a woman flowers.
But to fully appreciate what Rob Reiner made in his career, you have to look outside the films themselves and respect the attachments so many people have to them. These were not just popular movies and they weren't just good movies; these were an awful lot of people's favorite movies. They were movies people attached to their personalities like patches on a jacket, giving them something to talk about with strangers and something to obsess over with friends. And he didn't just do this once; he did it repeatedly.
Quotability is often treated as separate from artfulness, but creating an indelible scene people attach themselves to instantly is just another way the filmmakers' humanity resonates with the audience's. Mike Schur said something once about running Parks and Recreation that I think about a lot. Talking about one particularly silly scene, he said it didn't really justify its place in the final version, except that everybody loved it: And if everybody loves it, you leave it in. I would suspect that Rob Reiner was also a fan of leaving something in if everybody loved it. That kind of respect for what people like and what they laugh at is how you get to be that kind of director.
The relationships people have with scenes from Rob Reiner movies are not easy to create. You can market the heck out of a movie, you can pull all the levers you have, and you can capitalize on every advantage you can come up with. But you can't make anybody absorb "baby fishmouth" or "as you wish"; you can't make anybody say "these go to 11" every time they see the number 11 anywhere. You can't buy that for any amount of money. It's magical how much you can't; it's kind of beautiful how much you can't. Box office and streaming numbers might be phony or manipulated or fleeting, but when the thing hits, people attach to it or they don't.
My own example is The Sure Thing, Reiner's goodhearted 1985 road trip romantic comedy, essentially an updated It Happened One Night starring John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga. It follows a mismatched pair of college students headed for California: She wants to reunite with her dullard boyfriend, while he wants to hook up with a blonde he has been assured by his dirtbag friend (played by a young, very much hair-having Anthony Edwards!) is a "sure thing." But of course, the two of them are forced to spend all this time together, and ... well, you can imagine.
This movie knocked me over when I was 14, because I hadn't spent much time with romantic comedies yet, and it was like finding precisely the kind of song you will want to listen to forever, and so it became special to me. I studied it, really, I got to know what I liked about it, and I looked for that particular hit of sharp sweetness again and again. In fact, if forced to identify a single legacy for Rob Reiner, I might argue that he's one of the great American directors of romance, and his films call to the genre's long history in so many ways, often outside the story and the dialogue. (One of the best subtle jokes in all of romantic comedy is in The American President, when President Andrew Shepherd, played by Michael Douglas, dances with Sydney Wade, played by Annette Bening, to "I Have Dreamed," a very pretty song from the musical ... The King and I. That's what you get for knowing your famous love stories.)
Rob Reiner's work as a director, especially in those early films, wasn't just good to watch. It was good to love, and to talk about and remember. Good to quote from and good to put on your lists of desert island movies and comfort watches. And it will continue to be those things.
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