"Sleepless in Seattle" - Film Review
Norah Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle is one of the world’s most enduring romantic comedies, thanks in part to the magic trick the script pulls off. In most romantic comedies, the heart of the story is the multitude of ways the two main characters can be thrown together, yet never actually “get” together. The meet cute, the accidental run-ins, and the reconciliation are all essential to the format of a romantic comedy. One of the things that places Sleepless in Seattle so far above the rest is that there is no meet cute until the final scene. Somehow, Norah Ephron has created a world where it makes sense that two strangers are separated by 3,000 miles and still manage to fall in love without ever meeting each other. Of course it doesn’t hurt that the two strangers are played by one of the most charming actor duos of all time, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
Sam Baldwin (Hanks) is a recent widower who lives in Chicago. He is desperately seeking a change of scenery because he can’t live in Chicago without thinking of his deceased wife, Maggie (Carey Lowell), so he and his son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), move to a houseboat in Seattle. On Christmas Eve a year-and-a-half after the move, Jonah is unable to sleep and calls a national radio talk show to ask for advice for his father. Begrudgingly, and at Jonah’s insistence, Sam talks to the show’s host about how much he misses his wife. All the way across the country in Baltimore, Annie Reed (Ryan) hears Sam and Jonah and is immediately moved to tears. Despite the fact that she is engaged to a very nice man, Walter (Bill Pullman), there’s something about the way Sam spoke that Annie cannot get out of her head.
It’s a fantastical journey and requires some suspension of disbelief, but one that ultimately works and stands the test of time because of the sincerity of Ryan’s performance. Hanks has the slightly easier job of making his character more than just a voice on the radio, so the true burden falls on Ryan to make us believe it is within the realm of possibility that she is falling in love with a man she has only heard on the radio.
TriStar Pictures
Sleepless in Seattle was conceived and released in a far simpler time, when the word catfish meant only a fish that lives in water. Had the film been made now with the technology that exists today, it probably wouldn’t work as well. There’s an innocence in the way Annie can only look up Sam’s job and location because of her job at the Baltimore Sun. Even then, she’s unable to find a picture of him or learn anything more than what he shares on the radio. Today, she would have any number of social media accounts to scroll through.
The simplicity of the premise is what gives the film its enduring charm. Sure, planning a trip all the way across the country because of a faceless voice on the radio is not simple, but the emotions that push Annie to do so come across as authentic. When the finale occurs atop the Empire State Building, it’s hard not to be swept up in the emotions of Annie and Sam. Even though it’s predictable, Sleepless in Seattle is pure comfort and charm, bringing something lovely and fresh to the genre.
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