When Harry Met Sally and Mark Knapp's 10 Stages of Relational Development - Movie Review Example

Movie Review: WHEN HARRY MET SALLY and Mark Knapp's 10 stages of Relational Development Introduction: A relationship between two individual always pass through different phases. Rob Reiner's romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally is a movie which gives an idea about how a relationship can grow between two strangers, what are the different phases their relationship can pass through and what are the common characteristics that a relationship can have. When Harry Met Sally is a romantic movie directed by Rob Reiner, released on 1989. The main two characters of the movie Harry and Sally were played by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The movie begins with two unfamiliar persons Harry and Sally, newly graduated from University of Chicago jointly travel in a car from Chicago to New York, a place where they would find their living. In this movie, for a period of 11 years , during the basic stage of their relationship both Harry and Sally debated about a common fact and that was can a man and a women be nonsexual friend or not. If we analyze both the characters, Harry give the impression of carefree attitude, but is doubtful enough to “read the last page of a book first”; in case he dies, he says, “at least he'll know how it ends. And know-it-all Sally insists that Ingrid Bergman really wanted to leave Humphrey Bogart. From the dialogue of Sally ''I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Casablanca with a guy who owns a bar” her attitude towards life becomes very clear and also clearly represents who she is at that point of time. It presents the story of ten years down the line when Sally had a break up with her boyfriend and Harry’s wife left him and they again become best friends. Mark Knapp's 10 stages of Relational Development and the movie Harry Met Sally: To analyze the relationship development, Mark Knapp discussed10 different stages associated with it. Adler and Rodman (1993) in their book discussed about all this stages. Although it is not an interpersonal theory but still according to his concept the ten stages of interpersonal relationship are “Initiating, Experimenting, Intensifying, Integrating, Bonding, Differentiating, Circumscribing, Stagnating, Avoiding, and finally Terminating” (Adler and Rodman, 205-207). If one analyzes the movie When Harry Met Sally, it is very clear that relationship development not always follow Knapp’s 10 stage of development. If we analyze the movie then it is clear that out of first five stage of relationship development initiating was started when they first meet, then they were trying to find out whether a friendship among boys and girl can be happen without any sexual relation, that is the experimenting phase. Later on their friendship intensifies but it wassplit asunder after a spur-of-the-moment night of passion, when she was upset about an ex marrying someone else. The flow of the movie is also resembles the wayAdler and Rodman mentioned in their book about the flow of stages of relationship development among them. Their relationships have the stages of initiation, then integration of their thought process, and then they slowly started to like each other as their bonding grew. The main thought process which they were thinking about was related to whether friendship only related to sex or not. As they started to get involved in own personal life, slowly their interaction decreases, as mentioned by Adler and Rodman, it was the circumscribing stage (Adler and Rodman, 207). This was followed by avoiding. But when in their own life both of them separated from their partners they meet again, and during that time they do not have the necessity to start the relationship from the first stage again. Another key point associated with this movie is the self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is a key part of the integrating stage of the relationship development. When any couple reaches the integrating stage they are already very close to one another. In this phase, the couple started to complete one another’s sentences, and their attitude, opinion, taste choices started to merge. This was clearly shown in the movie. It was clearly visible in the last scene of the movie, when both of them were discussing about their wedding, Sally was describing their wedding cake, how much rich chocolate sauce she wants on the cake. On the other hand, Harry mentioned that few people might not like that. Another example of self-disclosure was the liking of same kind of clothing, opening joint account, designing a common tune as “our song” etc. If we try to analyze a particular scene of this movie to discuss about the relationship development then we can think about the dinner scene. As Harry told in the movie "It is so nice when you can sit with someone and not have to talk”- it is just resembles the truth like one never get embarrassed when he or she is with someone whom he or she really like. The dinner scene is not only about the sex but more so it is about relaxing of friends in a company of one another which resembles the bonding. The self-disclosure was also very prominent in few scenes of this movie. It was started during the first New Year party, when they came together and made a promise that no matter what they will meet every New Year party, whether or not they were in relationship with others. The self-disclosure was also prominent in the last new year party as well when Harry ran up to Sally after realizing the fact that it was Sally only whom he was missing and wanted to convey her that he wanted to spend rest of his life with her. These entire scenes in the movie clearly demonstrate the self-disclosure part. Conclusion: From the above analysis it is very clear that any relationship be it friendship or love goes through several stages but one cannot develop a theory regarding that. The movie When Harry met Sally is a clear indication of how two unknown person come in touch of each other, started to know one another and how their relation grows. It also discusses about a key factor of relationship between a boy and a girl and that is whether sex is everything in a relationship or not. The movie represents a clear idea about different faces of a relationship, the complicacy about a relationship and how a couple can know each otherclosely. From the analysis of self-disclosure we may also add the facts that sometimes complete self-disclosure may not be the best practice for the good and healthy relationship. Couples may need privacy and autonomy as well for a healthy relationship. Too much presence of the self-disclosure sometimes snatches away our sense of privacy and makes us feel over dependent on others. The idea comprises the way differences in opinion make people come close and know each other better. The movie When Harry Met Sally is a clear example of how a relationship is being developed through different stages, how they went away from one another to live their own life, where they failed and able to understand the fact that they love each other. The bonding, self-disclosure, intimacy, integration, bonding all these different stages are very much clearly represented in this movie in the relationship development of Harry and Sally. References Adler B. Ronald & Rodman R. George., Understanding Human Communication, Oxford University Press, 2012, Print. Read More