Nora Ephron. photo: courtesy of HBO
Nora Ephron, the witty but mean journalist-turned-screenwriter-turned-director we all wanted to be in the 70s-80s, is presented warts and all in an HBO documentary by her son Jacob Bernstein.
“Everything Is Copy – Nora Ephron: Scripted & Unscripted” is a wonderfully insightful chronicle of a woman, her family, the influence of a writer-mother, and her approach to essays, film and life. She crafted dinner parties as well as lives, news stories as well as film comedies. From the mailroom at Newsweek to the New York Daily News to Esquire essays, this daughter of screenwriters was a new kind of feminist voice in those years.
Her amazing trajectory into film, from 1986’s “Heartburn” (about her breakup with Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame) to 1989’s “When Harry Met Sally,” and beyond to “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail,” is charted in the documentary with insight from friends, family and colleagues.
“Everything Is Copy” premieres at 10 p.m. Monday on HBO.
Dramatic readings by Lena Dunham, Meg Ryan and Gaby Hoffman evoke the author’s wry humor, from her Esquire articles and scripts.
Sibling rivalry is a key component of the story, and Delia, Amy and Hallie Ephron offer telling comments about their difficult childhood. The motto, “Everything is copy,” is from their mother, whose work life was less successful and whose romantic life was even more tragic.
From that she evolved her worldview as a writer: When you slip on the banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on the banana peel, it s your laugh. So you become the hero, rather than the victim of the joke.
