It’s a question as old as 1989 when it was famously asked in one of the true rom-com greats, When Harry Met Sally:Can men and women truly be friends without attraction?
Lovable cynic Harry, who is played with a joyful grumpiness by Billy Crystal, insists platonic friendships are afallacy while Sally, in the role that cemented Meg Ryan’s place as America’s sweetheart, scoffs at the notion.
At the risk of spoiling a film that’s almost 35 years old, the pair then spend the rest of the movie bickering, bantering and then blossoming their friendship into romance to the hip soundtrack of Harry Connick Jr’s cocktail jazz.
In the film, the pair were both single, so the two attractive friends shacking up was somewhat of an inevitability. In the new series Platonic, which begins streaming on Apple TV+ today, a wrinkle is added to the age-old question by having one-half of the equation be married.
Just like old times for Sylvia (Rose Byrne) and Will (Seth Rogen) in Platonic.
Rose Byrne stars as Sylvia, a stay-at-home mum in a loving marriage who one evening learns that her old pal Will has just got divorced. Previously besties, the two had a massive falling out years ago and stopped talking. On telling her husband Charlie the news, he says she should give Will a call and patch things up.
Sylvia is reluctant, saying that they parted ways on especially bad terms, before adding: “Men and women don’t really hang out with each other at our age.”
Nevertheless, Charlie convinces her to check in on her old friend and she arranges to meet Will for what turns out to be an incredibly strained coffee. Out of politeness, he invites her to his bar’s birthday party later in the week and, to his surprise, she shows up. From there, it’s just like old times and the pair’s long-lost friendship is reignited.
The problem is that theirs was a very early-20s friendship, characterised by all-night partying, recreational drug-taking and the sort of wacky misadventures that arise out of those situations. With three children, a loving husband and a desire to upgrade out of her small house and into something bigger, Sylvia is in a very different place in her life.
Will, on the other hand, is reeling from his divorce and not at all over it. While he’s depressed and dealing with temper problems, he’s also embracing the party lifestyle of the single man. With his old BFF by his side, he feels unstoppable. As he says to Sylvia on a big night out with the boys, he needs her to be there so it makes the night “funny and ironic instead of old and sad”.
Cheers! Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen get their drink on in Platonic.
In many ways the revival of their friendship is parasitic. Will needs Sylvia to legitimise his existence, while Sylvia needs the spark her chaotic friendship with Will injects into her otherwise staid life. Picking up exactly where they left off, the two engage in a whirlwind of destructive behaviour that sees them monopolising each other’s time to the detriment of family (her), business (him) and relationships (both).
Despite the insistence on both sides that they were only ever friends-without-benefits, jealousies arise and complications abound. The official reason for their friendship cooling was Sylvia’s dislike of Will’s fiancée but the show regularly hints that there’s something bigger at the heart of their falling out. Whether that was one of them attempting to escape the friend zone or something else entirely is one of the show’s hooks.
Will is a likeable dude with an endless supply of quips so the part doesn’t exactly stretch Seth Rogen’s acting or comedic chops. But it works. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with Seth Rogen, right?
Bryne, on the other hand, really throws herself into the comedic situations her character finds herself in, whether that’s falling deep in a drug coma, or busting out excellent drunken moves on the dancefloor she is nothing less than wholly committed.
Old friends, old arguments. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne in Platonic.
Having played husband and wife before in the two Bad Neighbours films, Byrne and Rogen have fantastic chemistry together, lending the entire premise believability. The episodes are frequently laugh-out-loud funny, whether going big like Charlie’s awkward man-date with Will at a baseball game or small like Will arguing with his workmates that When Harry Met Sally proved men and women can actually be friends without romance.
“No, Will. Bad example,” his buddy says, “Harry married Sally. That movie should have been called When Harry F****d Sally.”
Five episodes in I’m not sure if Platonic will turn out to be a rom-com with the mates hooking up, an anti-rom-com with the mates parting ways or a straight-up drama-com with the mates just staying mates and everyone living happily ever after.
If so, does that make the idea of platonic relationships nothing more than a fairy tale, as Harry claimed way back in 1989, or, like Sally, is Platonic setting out to prove the opposite?
