Heartburn is a 1986

1986 in film

-Events:*April 12 - Actor Morgan Mason marries The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle.*April 26 - Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger marries television journalist Maria Shriver.*May - Actress Heather Locklear marries Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee....

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...

. The screenplay by Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, journalist, author, and blogger.She is best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in...

 is based on her semi-autobiographical novel of the same name

Heartburn (novel)

Heartburn is an autobiographical novel based on Nora Ephron's life story about her second marriage to Carl Bernstein. It especially focuses on his affair with Margaret Jay, daughter of James Callaghan. Ephron also wrote the screenplay for the film based on the novel starring Meryl Streep and Jack...

, which was inspired by her tempestuous second marriage to Carl Bernstein

Carl Bernstein

Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist who, at The Washington Post, teamed up with Bob Woodward; the two did the majority of the most important news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations, the indictment of a vast number of...

 and his affair with Margaret Jay. Rachel is a food writer at a New York magazine who meets Washington columnist Mark at a wedding and falls in love with him. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel believes they are living a fairy tale ending until she discovers her husband is having an affair.