"I'll Have What She's Having"

Nora Ephron died recently, from complications of leukemia.  She was 71.

If she had never written a single screenplay apart from When Harry Met Sally, Nora Ephron would deserve mention in the Egg, on the grounds that she was a Hero of Sex.  We aren't thinking so much of the diner scene (although that, too) as of the movie's ability to draw credible, conflicted characters, and show them slowly -- so slowly! -- growing into a relationship that is all the more passionate for being based on friendship.

In fact, she wrote a lot of other screenplays, some of which (Heartburn, anybody?) take a more jaundiced view of matters amatory.  There's plenty of room for that in this life, too.  Others aren't about love or sex at all -- Silkwood, for example, is the true story of a brave whistle-blower.  A few are probably best left unmentioned (okay, fine:  Michael.  Bewitched.).  But on the whole, she deserves to be remembered warmly, not least as the sort of writer, director and producer to succeed at making the sort of movies Hollywood wants to believe cannot succeed any longer.