Moonlighting In Mischief And Still Making Us Laugh

by Andrew Harmon

Depending on how old you are (or how old you'll admit), there's a good chance that 20 years ago this past summer you were sitting in a movie theater watching Sally. Conservatively dressed in a muted cable-knit sweater, she sat in a crowded New York deli, running fingers through her thick, curly-blond hair while methodically re-enacting a fake orgasm in front of a subtly horrified Harry. The classic denouement of the scene: "I'll have what she's having," a gray-haired matron at the next table deadpanned to the waitress.

You'd seen this young actress before. Top Gun? Innerspace? But it wasn't until Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally that you viewed Meg Ryan in full romantic comedy relief. The natural verve, the quick, unforced wit-women in the audience who appreciated aplomb and sex appeal that never swerved into tastelessness wanted to be her. The gay men sitting next to them wanted to be her best friend. And straight guys just wanted her, at least the ones who weren't fawning over a tube top-clad Christina Applegate on Married... with Children at the time.

Ryan's oeuvre since 1989 has transcended the genre. She's played a Gulf War commander, a scrappy boxing manager fond of faux-snakeskin miniskirts, an alcoholic wife and mother drowning in the vodka she hides in cupboards and closets. But for those of us who reveled in the sight of Ryan knocking down Billy Crystal's lothario-lite smugness a few pegs, we always look forward to the her comedic turn. Not all the films are pitch-perfect, yet Ryan always delivers. And in the current chapter of her career, she gets a kick out of her recent roles-namely forty-something women behaving badly. "I'm loving it," she says. "This is what you get to do when you're older. You throw away convention."

Ryan is sitting in a room at the Crosby Street Hotel in SoHo. She should be outdoors; it's been one of those rare, resplendent November days in New York where the mercury has climbed into the low-60s, and downtown-dwellers read the Sunday paper on The High Line as the sun hangs low in the sky ("Every single time I think I've had enough of this city, there's a day like this," she says).

Her latest act of onscreen mischief is Serious Moonlight, the Cheryl Hines directorial debut co-starring Timothy Hutton, Kristen Bell and Justin Long. Its taut, intellectual script was penned by another woman who began captivating audiences 20 years ago, even if her professional trajectory was comparatively lower-profile. This is the final screenplay from writer/director Adrienne Shelly, the unflinching star of Hal Hartley indie favorites The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. In 2006, Shelly's husband, Andrew Ostroy, found her with a bedsheet tied around her neck in the bathroom of their Greenwich Village apartment. Suicide was implausible, Ostroy asserted to the media and the police, and he was right. A 19-year-old construction worker and burglar who had broken into the residence was later convicted in Shelly's murder and sentenced to 25 years without the possibility of parole.

These are sobering facts, and, as such, Serious Moonlight was treated with an air of reverence by its producers and actors. "We didn't change a word. I think we were all adamant about that," Ryan says. "We all felt this real fidelity to [the script], about not even changing a single ‘the.'"

Ryan plays Louise, a successful Manhattan attorney who drives a black BMW to her upstate New York country home, one day early of a planned sojourn with husband Ian (Hutton). She arrives to find the obvious paraphernalia for any romantic weekend: rose petals throughout the house. But they aren't meant for Louise. Ian has Sara, his foxy, 24-year-old receptionist (Bell) in mind. Things fall apart, as you'd expect, and in similar fashion to 1995's French Kiss, also starring Ryan and Hutton, where the neurotic Kate overcomes her fear of flying on a transatlantic trip to Paris to win back Charlie, her cold-feet fiancé who's fallen for a much-younger siren.

In Moonlight, Ian cops to the affair and says he's leaving the marriage. A lovelorn Louise's plan of attack? I. Will. Make. You. Love. Me. Again.

The ensuing antics were shot by Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Hines not in an upstate cottage, but in an, "ugly L.A. bathroom" over a breakneck 20 days, Ryan says with a laugh. After knocking him out with a flower pot in a brief fit of rage, Louise duct-tapes Ian to the toilet and attempts to re-seduce her disengaged husband. "Oh no no no," Ryan says of her character's unhinged strategy. "You aren't leaving until I show you this slideshow of our marriage. Until I sing you this song. All the while he just doesn't want me. Adrienne just doesn't back off with these people, imprisoned in small, ugly room. It's all about the dialogue." Who Ian does want is a version Louise, perhaps-but one 20 years younger, who drives a red Volkswagen Beetle convertible and whose naiveté about relationships is thoroughly grating. Kristen Bell, who's starred in Heroes, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Veronica Mars, is a formidable talent in the role of a young mistress, Ryan says no uncertain terms: "She's beautiful, smart, incredibly game and loves the absurd. That doesn't come along very often."

If Ryan laments not being the young thing on camera, she isn't showing it-nor should she. "What makes those movies interesting are the obstacles that keep these lovers apart," she says. "It feels like the older you get, the obstacles are more internal, more about your character, and less about circumstances. That's why this movie was such a great exercise."

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MICHEL COMTE
STYLED BY AYAKO SHIDA
HAIR BY PATRICIA MORALES
MAKE-UP BY RIKU CAMPO