Now that Rob Reiner is gone, I realize that of all film directors, he was the one whose work spoke to me most personally. From This is Spinal Tap to Stand By Me to The Princess Bride to When Harry Met Sally and beyond, his films mapped out the different emotional regions of my life.
The films Rob Reiner directed inevitably got at the great contradiction in human existence: We are all ornery cusses, bent on self sabotage in ways that we do not even realize. Yet we are also beings of grace, and that grace comes out when we realize how much we need each other, and when we show up for one another.
The man himself may be gone, his life tragically cut short, but his work will live on forever. I suspect that long after most of today’s films are forgotten, future generations will be rewatching the extraordinary and beautifully true windows that he has given us into the human condition.