Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

**Effective, functional and elegant, it has a script that I didn't like very much, and it has aged a little badly, but it remains an endearing film.**

This is surely one of the most famous romantic comedies that came out during the 90's, and one of the films that helped to popularize Tom Hanks, showing the world that he could be a serious actor and do more interesting things besides comedy. The film begins with a man and his young son moving to Seattle to deal with a mourning process. There, the child begins to pressure his father to find a girlfriend, to the point of calling a radio program where the father tells his story, touching a young journalist from Baltimore who is about to marry a man she doesn't love.

The script relies heavily on Platonism: the two main characters do not know each other, and only the radio broadcast and the exchange of letters truly connects them. Neither has any real reason to look for the other (Hanks' character sees physical distance as an obstacle, and Ryan's character is already committed). In the end, it is the tenacity and stubbornness of a child that leads them to find each other. Based purely on instinct, which is an illogical and irrational argument for an adult to make his decisions. For that reason, and despite recognizing the film's qualities, I didn't particularly appreciate it. I see and understand the attempt to create a contemporary romantic fable here, but fables don't really seem to work these days. For me, this one didn't work.

The film's great strength is in the excellent performances of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The two are still quite young, trying to take advantage of the opportunity to achieve higher flights in more profitable and attractive projects for their careers. Hanks had mostly done comedy up until this point, and was determined to showcase his abilities in other projects. There is no doubt that he knew how to do it and show a deeper, more sensitive and emotional side that was not evident in his work so far. Ryan was also very competent in her role. Ross Malinger was also pretty good.

The film is not a great visual spectacle. It's a 90's movie that hasn't aged well and doesn't put much effort into the visuals. Proof of this are the graphics on that US map, which look like an arcade game. The cinematography is dull, and the colors washed out, but that was commonplace and routine in films of this era, and I take that reasonably well. The film tries to compensate us with excellent scenery and cityscapes of Seattle and New York, which is always effective, and with an excellent ending on top of the Empire State Building. The soundtrack makes a smart bet on songs by Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, Celine Dion, Carly Simon, Roy Rogers and others. Most of the songs are well known and popular.

I can't say I had a fun time with <em>'Sleepless in Seattle'</em>.

Post-watching, I was unsure how I felt about it. The whole set-up and how the story is portrayed is weird, the fact that the two characters in what supposed to be a romcom don't even properly meet until the final act is an odd choice, like don't get me wrong I can see it working but here it didn't for me... especially with one side giving stalker vibes, which adds to the weirdness.

I also wasn't convinced by the two leads, in both their performances and in their suitability - obviously the latter is hampered by the fact we barely seem them together so they cannot show any chemistry. Tom Hanks is the standout but only just, Meg Ryan tries though her character is just a bit mundane; and is in my opinion better suited to Bill Pullman's Walter, even though the film attempts to show us the opposite. No-one else onscreen sticks out, though credit to youngster Ross Malinger.

It's a nae from me, both Hanks and Ryan have thankfully done much better.

“It’s easier to get killed by a terrorist than to get married at over forty!” Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but it’s the sentiment here as recently widowed “Sam” (Tom Hanks) moves to Seattle with his son “Jonah” (Ross Malinger) to start again. Unable to shake off the effects of his grief, it falls to the young lad to galvanise his dad into meeting someone new, and so he arranges a late night radio catharsis which is heard by “Annie” (Meg Ryan). She is entangled with the nice but dull “Walter” (Bill Pullman) but as she begins to let romantic fantasies about “Sam” take over she revisits her favourite Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr film “An Affair to Remember” and comes up with the idea of writing to him asking for a rendezvous atop the Empire State Building. Meantime, following on from his heart-rending broadcast, “Sam” has had plenty of correspondence from ladies but he is bent on a more traditional courting approach and so again it falls to his young son to expedite matters with one “Uncertain from Baltimore”. Can he play Cupid and even if he does, is their any chance that dad will like her, that she is actually “Annie” and that someone might wonder why an unaccompanied eight year old is flying across the USA? It’s like a short story that’s been stretched to feature-length, and though the premise is quite engaging the rather pedestrian execution from all but the young Malinger actually made me realise just how good the Kerr/Grant combo actually was. Some of the writing has an observational realism and wit to it; it does benefit from a classy soundtrack with some Jimmy Durante topping and tailing the romance, and there are lots of shots of an attractive New York skyline, but these two characters didn’t really do anything for me and as the scenario started to contrive it’s fairly obvious conclusion I lost interest. It’s an easy watch but like almost everything with Meg Ryan in, is fairly bland.