The first of my 3 reviews is of a film I see many flaws in, I respect the movie in it's genre but all efforts towards how the characters are played felt so scripted it was like being force fed and it's disappointing to see that.
Sleepless in Seattle
is a film I have seen many times before whether it was because of family, friends or loved
ones. Signs, change, travel, endless running, wishes, timing, magic, fate or destiny,
are the symbolisms that define this
Romance. The movie has a simple storyline and has had an obvious impact on the Romance and Rom-Com genre since
1993. The big American Stars, Tom Hanks
and Meg Ryan perform what I would consider quite an unusual back and forth as
the actors don’t physically meet/interact face to face for a substantial
portion of the film. It is filled with
obvious fantasy, ideal, dream like qualities
that appeal greatly towards the female
target audience.
Personally I have
never understood the appeal in the
actual narrative it follows, as I am the
kind of person who likes films to leave a little mystery. In every other scene, the film incorporates
one of the symbolisms, it is either visible or directly discussed by the actors
Nora Ephron, I assume, must have wanted etch that into the memory of the
viewer, unfortunately I found it to be far too distracting.
The storyline opens with an establishing shot of
a graveyard, a Man (Tom Hanks) and his son, their standing over the boys
recently deceased Mother, I felt it set the plot in motion quite rapidly,
introducing the feelings of our main character and his little boy. Shots of the
cityscape represents the busy lifestyle
of our father character, hurrying into interior shots of his office where he is
having a rant with a trusted college stressing the idea of change just before
the opening credits role, change being one of the key attitudes focused on
because of his connection to his son and how his mother dying has affected how
he sees his dad, unhappy without that special person. This is a fantastic point
the film gets across, and gratefully I have not been unfortunate enough know
what it would be like to lose a parent, but I still feel remorse for the
characters much like any viewer would, and this tragic loss is used to grip the
audience into the emotions of this busy Father.
The young boy calls
a radio show ‘Doctor’ to ask how she can help his dad to feel less alone and depressed this close to Christmas, much to his
displeasure Tom Hanks continues with the over the phone interview and his story
is told to all the woman in America. After hearing this heartbreaking story
every woman in the city begin to talk about
this perfect, sensitive man alone this
Christmas time, although most of the movie consists of some sort of back and
forth, the scenes involving any radio segment or talk of said radio segment
have a much denser shot reverse shot sequence, usually focusing on the strong
facial reactions of the characters, cleverly filling in the parts where you’re
supposed to ‘Aww’, However, to me, that style of filming is too forced, being
told my emotions is a bit boring.
The New Year ball
drops, and a metaphorical new leaf is turned for Tom hanks, this is where I
found the film to turn slightly creepy. Meg Ryan starts to follow him as soon
as he tries to start his new life, watching the Father and Son duo play on the
beach all the while avoiding her soon to be husband. Whilst listening to one of
the radio programs she peels an apple in a single cut, this is to reference the
imagery of his now passed wife (She’d memorably always do the same when eating
an apple) this simple action is supposed make the audience believe that this
woman is made for the father, as he loved someone who could do this previously.
Ephron wanted you to believe that this is an incredibly unusual act, that fate
has brought them together through their apple eating habits, however I know
it’s very easy to peel an apple in one.
Coincidently, after
the boy takes his time to read many of the fan mail his dad received, he finds
Meg Ryan’s letter and, as if fate itself intervened, she becomes his favourite
fan constantly reminding his dad about her. However unbeknownst to the boy or
the Father she has already stalked them for a while by this point in the film.
I feel like Ephron wanted these scenes to have some comedic element to them;
however I found it more disturbing than anything else. If Ephron had eased up
on how much Meg Ryan’s character wanted to meet Tom Hanks then it might have
made it more believable.
More and more scenes
involving travel, the further the movie progresses the longer it seems we have
to sit anxiously with our characters and wait for them to arrive and if not
that, the focus is running, I think that Ephron wanted to convey the imagery of
the two characters getting closer towards each other. Especially with the use
of cutaways to the map of America which was used several times within the film
to show the distance travelled. I could be wrong but it seemed like whenever
Meg Ryan was running or traveling it would be from left to right of the screen
and when Tom Hanks travelled it was quite the opposite I think this was to
signify the locations of both Chicago and Seattle.
My final thoughts are probably towards the most
important reason for me not having such a high regard for the film is because its entire premise is based on a lie, it
didn’t feel like ‘Your soul mate is out there and it doesn’t matter how far
apart you are from each other, you will find each other’ for me it seemed like
‘You do enough research you can track someone down and get them to fall in love
with you, just so long as you hang around in there general area most days of
the week’, it obviously ties together nicely towards the end when they finally
meet and talk face to face, the boy evidently doesn’t know that Tom hanks and
Meg Ryan have actually seen each other before (Clearly Meg saw Tom a lot more
than he saw her)but for it to take the whole film for such a tell-tale ending I
would of wanted to maybe have it resolve in a way which they never meet,
showing to the audience that these
fate-like situations could be happening on an almost daily basis.
