My single favorite exchange in Sleepless in Seattle is between Sam and Jonah. Jonah wants his dad to meet Annie, but Sam is hesitant to do so. “Didn’t you see Fatal Attraction?” he asks his eight-year-old. “You wouldn’t let me!” Jonah replies, proving that Sam, apologies to Adrian Lyne, might be a pretty decent father after all. “Well, I saw it!” Sam says. “It scared the shit out of me! It scared the shit out of every man in America!” Alex Forrest represents the fear that a man can make just one little mistake and end up paying for it with multiple lives, human and lagomorph alike. On AFI’s original Villains list, she places seventh, ahead of luminaries like the Evil Queen from Snow White and the shark from Jaws.

When Nora Ephron wrote When Harry Met Sally a few years before, she showed that she had a similar pulse on male fears about female attachment. The threat isn’t that Alex Forrest will have sex with you and then refuse to leave you alone ever again. The threat, second to the Alex Threat but still horrifying, is that Sally Albright will have sex with you and the morning after, she will smile at you with her whole body. It’s one of the essential images of When Harry Met Sally, more important, in the end, than the wagon wheel coffee table or the grape seeds spat out onto a closed car window. Sally is not such a vulnerable person, as evidenced from her reactions to Harry’s tantrum over that table, or Harry’s morbid manners on the drive to New York City. She has the capacity to speak up for herself, and she does so without compunctions. “It just so happens that I have had plenty of great sex,” she shouts in a diner, alerting all of its patrons to her successful intrigues. That frankness, which so often gets women labeled with the b-word, is so effective that it can shock Harry into good behavior when he doesn’t want to behave at all. It is proper, and it’s usually defensive, and it’s honest.

The same frankness is in that smile, that smile that points up into her cheeks, reflecting itself back into her nose and shoulders. It is the smile of someone who is pleased, utterly fulfilled, and who is ready to share that fulfillment with the person next to her. The bottom falls out when she wakes up the next morning to find him already dressed and distant, but in those moments before they go to sleep, she has brought candor to her vulnerability as well. She isn’t looking at Harry. Maybe she should be, to understand what she’s gotten herself into, to defend herself against what’s coming. She doesn’t, and it’s hard to blame her. Harry has been her best friend for so long and their companionship so deep that she shouldn’t have to protect herself from his confusion. Sally’s vulnerability is laudable. She does not have to be wise at every moment. Naked in bed, together with the one she has snuggled up with, she relaxes.