Nora Ephron’s legacy is so vast that you need only say her name and everyone knows exactly what you mean. “Like a Nora Ephron movie,” “right out of a Nora Ephron play,” “a piece redolent of Nora Ephron.” Say no more. And yet her movies don’t get the same shine as the idea of her movies, where people are pushed through the shape of the modern world as if through a pasta maker, having to deal with their new shape and its attendant problems. Namely that you’re about to be someone’s dinner.
Whether that’s Meg Ryan’s bookshop owner fighting for her life when Tom Hanks’ corporate lackey moves in next door to suck the blood out of her business in “You’ve Got Mail.” Or Ryan again and Billy Crystal having to become other people to find love in Rob Reiner’s film of her script “When Harry Met Sally…” Or Meryl Streep’s gadabout having to become a wife for a cad in Mike Nichols’ film of “Heartburn” before finally realizing she’d rather just be herself. That is the plight of the Nora Ephron woman, and once we’ve met them we don’t forget them.
1992’s “This is My Life” didn’t even get a chance to be forgotten, as it barely got attention at the time and has since been so neglected you could be forgiven for not knowing it exists. For a figure as monolithic as Ephron, that’s quite a feat. It’s a crying shame as it’s an incredible piece, funny and brittle and warm and cold all at once. Julie Kavner (the best friend of the comedy writer), Samantha Mathis, and Gabby Hoffman play Ephron at different stages of her life, from the young woman knee high to unappreciated comedic voices in her house, to the teen girl watching with jealousy and sadness as someone close to her becomes too famous to be her mother anymore, and to the woman who thought she could have it all.
It’s a remarkable little comedy with no greater ambition than capturing those moments when three people have to understand what it means to share a life as it changes so dramatically. A really special film. Legendary film critic Carrie Rickey and I once started talking about her movies, and we both landed at the same conclusion: it’s her best movie by quite some distance. When Carrie gives it the seal of approval, that’s gospel.
