SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE
A film review by Emily L. Corse
Copyright 1993 Emily L. Corse/The Summer Pennsylvanian
*** (out of ****)
If you want to believe that true love is magic....
Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are so appealing in SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE that only a confirmed curmudgeon could dislike this funny, friendly romance. The film's central theme, the idea that somewhere there's a perfect magical love, will provoke more than a little in-theater Kleenex action this summer.
Hanks plays Sam Baldwin, a recently-widowed Seattle architect with an eight-year-old son and a bad case of melancholia. Ryan plays Annie Reed, a recently-engaged Baltimore journalist with a case of cold feet. They're perfect for each other, but would never even meet if it weren't for the power of Fate. (Fate was a power player in 1990's abysmal JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO, which also starred Ryan and Hanks. Fortunately they redeem themselves here.)
Sam's young son Jonah (played with a satisfying degree of restraint by Ross Malinger) becomes the catalyst when he phones a Christmas Eve radio talk show to wish for a new wife for his still-grieving father. Annie, like most of the women listeners, is touched by the poignancy of Jonah's request. After Sam is bullied onto the air by the smarmy talk show "doctor," Annie is moved to tears by his beautiful, bittersweet description of his lost love. She responds with a letter to Sam, the anonymous radio caller identified as "Sleepless in Seattle."
Jonah chooses Annie's letter over thousands of others, but Sam (who's seen FATAL ATTRACTION) is understandably reluctant to involve himself with an unknown woman 3000 miles away. As Jonah connives to bring about a meeting, the film cuts back and forth between the characters and their two cities, with the portent of their pre-destined love percolating in the background.
Director and co-writer Nora Ephron uses a failure-proof formula of thirty-something humor and yuppie privilege to concoct this year's answer to WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.... As the Oscar-nominated screenwriter for that 1989 film (again starring Ryan), Ephron deserves much of the credit for repeating its success here.
Some aspects of the film may seem a little too familiar, such as the last-minute holiday sprint down New York streets, the repeating motif of a classic romantic movie (AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER in this case), and a soundtrack of old standards. But more importantly, the humor still sparkles, even when the themes are as old as the hills.
Men mock the emotionalism of women; women bemoan the scarcity of men; precocious children use naughty words. Some of the best laughs in the movie are almost throw-aways, like Annie's careless over-the-shoulder concern when she accidentally bashes her fiance in the head, "I'm sorry hon, are you bleeding?" with no pause for a response. Even the moldier jokes work (as when Hanks exclaims with outrage, "That's a chicks' movie!"), thanks to the skillful comic timing of the actors.
The soundtrack also contributes comic effect, such as Gene Autry's
encouraging "Back in the Saddle Again" when Sam finally decides to
Rob Reiner, director of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY..., has a disappointingly small role as Sam's buddy Jay. "Tiramisu," he trumpets, offering Sam a cryptic pointer on dating in the '90s. Annie too gets plenty of wacky advice on the singles scene from her best friend and confidante Becky, cheerfully played by Rosie O'Donnell. The wise-cracking O'Donnell was last seen on-screen with Hanks in last year's baseball comedy A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN--and she'll satisfy her fans again here.
The locales used for filming are beautiful, dream-like and watery, from the docks in Seattle to Baltimore's Inner Harbor, but ironically this still feels like a New York movie. The Rainbow Room and the Empire State Building provide the settings for the movie's climactic scenes, and the Space Needle just can't compete. And yet, the mellowness of the main characters indicates a cultural move from the neuroses and angst of the classic Woody Allen style to a new middle American sensibility. This isn't a movie about who we *are*, but about who we'd like to be.
Sam and Annie are beautiful, funny, sensitive, and successful. They've struggled a bit, but their destiny is absolutely happily-ever-after. Though it takes the entire length of the movie for them to find each other, the wait is worthwhile-- SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is a fantasy we want to believe.
--Emily L. Corse corse@cit.med.upenn.edu
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