Anna Shaffer

Anna Shaffer Instagram – I don’t think there’s a director whose films mean more to me than Rob Reiner’s. Or whose films I’ve watched more, literally over and over and over and over and over again. I wanted to be Robin Wright and Meg Ryan and fancied the pants off Cary Elwes and River Phoenix and Billy fucking Crystal. I mean, I think I kind of wanted to be Billy Crystal too, don’t we all. Maybe you can only be the kind of director with that kind of range if you’re a brilliant actor too, which Rob Reiner was. It’s no coincidence he’s in a bunch of my favourite films – to be that good at both you have to have a surgical understanding of the heart. How to crack it open and put it back together again in just the right way. He was a funny silly-billy, sure, but he was also a true romantic, meeting his wife during the filming of when Harry Met Sally meant he changed the ending..they just had to be together. “When you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want to start the rest of your life as soon as possible”, that’s all Nora Ephron. But Harry, running through New York City, breathless but so completely alive, the close up as his eyes search for Sally at the party, that stays on him as he finds her while bustling party people sing Auld Lang Syne in the background. His eyes always on Sally. Close on both of them, as close as they’ve been all these years. Will they, won’t they. And finally they do, of course they do! That’s all Rob Reiner, every last bit. A total mensch. His death is desperately sad but weren’t we all so lucky? Rest in peace Rob and Michelle and thank you thank you thank you for the magic, for the perfect bedside manner as you performed open heart surgery so carefully on us all for all these years. | Posted on 15/Dec/2025 14:11:03