Classic Movie Review: 'Sleepless in Seattle'

Sleepless in Seattle (2023)

Directed by Nora Ephron

Written by Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, Jeff Arch

Starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Rita Wilson, Victor Garber, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Pullman

Release Date June 25th, 1993

Published June 26th, 2023

Losing my mother in 2013 was the hardest thing that I have ever endured. My mom was awesome. She worked three retail jobs, 80 to 90 hours per week, when I was a kid, just to make sure that myself and my sister had food and a good home. All that time, she remained unsinkable in her spirit and love. She was a human teddy bear, soft and comforting. Her worst quality was that when someone she loved was suffering, she would make that suffering her own, as if she could take our pain away by making it her pain. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had a mom who was so loving and empathetic.

My mom fostered my love of movies. I have a distinct memory from my childhood of my mother swooning over Cary Grant. I'd make fun of her for her reaction to Cary Grant movies and she would lean into it by talking about how handsome and charming he was in effusive terms. I can recall the first time I saw my mom cry was the day she was supposed to go see Cary Grant's one man show in Davenport, Iowa. That show never happened as Grant died the night before the show was to take place. My mom showed me that para-social relationships with celebrities weren't a bad thing, they were a human thing.

The movie Sleepless in Seattle, which features prominent references to Cary Grant, became a favorite movie for my mom. She would watch it any chance she got. She didn't love Tom Hanks as she did Cary Grant, but her heart leapt seeing him fall for Meg Ryan at the last minute. She felt the same rush of emotion every time she watched the movie, even as she'd seen it a dozen times and was fully aware that the happy ending was coming. She always got teary when Meg Ryan took Tom Hanks' hand at the end of the movie. It showed me that being emotional about movies was not just okay, but something that just happens when you witness something beautiful.

Sleepless in Seattle is a beautiful film. It's a celebration of magical romance and believing in something beyond yourself, the notion of fate. The characters of Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed were fated to be together. The universe conspires to unite them. Through the audacity and resolute stubbornness of Sam's son, Jonah, and the good luck that he has a best friend, played by Gaby Hoffman, whose parents are travel agents, Sam and Annie are brought dramatically together on the most romantic day of the year in one of the most romantic spots on the planet.

But first, we have to set the table. Having lost his wife, Sam Baldwin moves himself and his son across the country from Chicago to Seattle to escape the pain of the death of his wife and Jonah's mom, played in flashback by Carey Lowell. As we join the story, it's been a year and a half since she passed away and Sam is still struggling with her loss. That's when Jonah takes the initiative to try and get his dad out of his funk. Late night on Christmas, Jonah calls a national radio show and speaks with the host, a shrink. He tells her about how sad his dad is and how he never sleeps.

The host asks Jonah to bring Sam onto the call and from there, Sam shares the story of his life with his wife, what he misses about her, what he loved about her and why he misses her so much. The call becomes a sensation across the country, essentially going viral before such a concept even existed. The radio station is bombarded with letters intended for the man now known as Sleepless in Seattle. One of those letters eventually comes from Annie Reed, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

Annie was listening on that Christmas night and was touched by Jonah's love for his dad and the sadness in Sam's voice. When she hears her best friend, played by Rosie O'Donnell, talking about the story, she talks about listening to it and Rosie suggests that she do a story on the radio show. Annie uses the opportunity to research Sam Baldwin as the phone call hit her right in the heart. For reasons that she cannot explain, this man she never met feels like a soul mate, a person she could love for the rest of her life.

For his part, Sam is put off by the attention from the radio show. That is, until fate conspires to have him briefly meet Annie. Just one look at the beautiful blonde reporter and Sam is smitten. But he only sees her briefly at the Seattle Airport and again on a Seattle highway where Annie is nearly hit by a truck. The two never speak but the connection in their eyes is enough for those of us in the audience to want to see them together. Neither one knows that the wheels of fate are conspiring to put them in the same place at the same time on Valentine's Day.

The movie An Affair to Remember is an important plot point in Sleepless in Seattle. In that film, Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr play star crossed lovers whose plans to meet at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day are thwarted when Kerr is hit by a car and left paralyzed. The movie inspires Annie to ask Sam to meet her at the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day to see if they might be fated to be together. It takes a huge and scary intervention by 8 year old Jonah to make it happen but its still a quite magical moment.

Writer-Director Nora Ephron leans heavily into romantic magic in Sleepless in Seattle. She's a deft comedy director who knows how to build romantic tension via comedy that deepens her melodrama. It's a splendid piece of direction. The pacing, the ability to narrowly avoid becoming too sappy, and the incredible performances that she draws from her wonderful actors demonstrates that Ephron is a master of this kind of formula romance. She's arguably the director who created this style of romantic comedy that marries a bit of the screwball excess of the past with a modern, for the 90s, comic architecture.

It's hard to believe it has been a mere 30 years since Sleepless in Seattle was released. The film really doesn't age. The themes and the references feel timeless as do the performances of Ryan and Hanks. Few actors have the kind of chemistry that Hanks and Ryan have, even as they barely share the screen in Sleepless in Seattle, their connection is palpable. A scene of the two of them looking into each others eyes across a busy highway feels like the height of romance just because their faces and eyes are so genuine.

Hanks' nobility crossed with Ryan's impish sense of humor, are an explosive romantic combination. When the two finally share the screen at the very end of Sleepless in Seattle, their hands touching feels like a well earned romantic climax. We don't even get a big movie ending kiss, the hand holding is more than enough to sell us that we've experienced a big happy romantic ending. That's just one indication of how exceptionally well directed Sleepless in Seattle is.

Sleepless in Seattle is the latest film to be featured on my new podcast, a spinoff of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, Everyone's a Critic 1993. Each week, myself and my co-hosts, teenager M.J and Gen-Xer Amy, watch a movie from 1993 in chronological release order. The goal is to examine how movies and popular culture have changed over the past 30 years. It's been a blast doing this show and especially exposing M.J to movies from before they were born to see how they react to things Amy and I grew up watching. You can hear the Everyone's a Critic 1993 Podcast on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast feed, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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