Sleepless in Seattle - a review by Nathan Stanyon

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.