Themes: Starting Over, Looking For Love, Obsessive Quests
Main Cast: Dana Ivey, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Ross Malinger, Rosie O'Donnell, Victor Garber, Rob Reiner
Release Year: 1993
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Sleepless in Seattle, the sophomore directorial effort from Nora Ephron, is a light romantic comedy inspired by the 1957 film An Affair to Remember. Tom Hanks stars as widower and single father Sam. When Sam's son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), calls into a talk radio program looking for a new mother, Sam ends up getting on the phone and laments about his lost love. Thousands of miles away, Annie (Meg Ryan) hears the program and immediately falls in love with Sam, despite the fact that she has never met him and that she is engaged to humdrum Walter (Bill Pullman). Believing they are meant to be together, Annie sets out for Seattle to meet Sam, who, meanwhile, contends with an onslaught of letters from available women equally touched by his phone call. Rosie O'Donnell, Rita Wilson, and Rob Reiner also star. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Review
Nora Ephron's gentle romantic comedy, a throwback to the tearjerkers of the '40s and '50s, is saved from mawkishness by a combination of deft one-liners and a typically winning performance by Tom Hanks. Ephron, who made her reputation as a tough, no-nonsense journalist and author in the '60s before moving on to screenwriting, was also famous for having eviscerated her two ex-husbands in print. Whether her late-career foray into romantic comedy signaled a new-found vulnerability or a keen awareness of film industry economics, only she can say. The film uses Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember (1957) as a touchstone, and its gossamer plot is similarly based on coincidence, as an affianced journalist (Meg Ryan) becomes enamored of an architect (Hanks) after hearing him express his love for his deceased wife on a radio call-in show. Though the film offers little in the way of surprise, Ephron was shrewd in casting Hanks, an actor whose rare ability to play both his character's melancholy and deadpan wit help to keep the project's saccharine quotient at a tolerable level. Ross Malinger, who plays his young son, also scores here, a kid with the timing and delivery of a veteran tummler. Ryan is appealing, but is saddled with a vague character defined mostly by her date with destiny. To enhance the mood the film, it features a soundtrack of love songs from earlier decades by the likes of Nat King Cole and Ray Charles, which can be enjoyed even by those who are a mite skeptical about what they've been watching. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Gaby Hoffmann - Jessica; Rita Wilson - Suzy; Barbara Garrick - Victoria; Carey Lowell - Maggie Baldwin; Caroline Aaron - Dr. Marcia Fieldstone; Sidney Armus - Information Booth Man; Michael Badalucco - New York Taxi Dispatcher; Frances Conroy - Irene Reed; Le Chance DuRand - Barbara Reed; Tom Riis Farrell - Rob; Dana Ivey - Claire; Philip Levy - Taxi Driver; Brian McConnachie - Bob; Victor Morris - Seattle Maitre D'; Kevin O'Morrison - Cliff Reed; David Hyde Pierce - Dennis Reed; La Tanya Richardson - Harriet; Diane Sokolow - Tiffany Saleswoman; Sarah Trigger; Linda Wallem - Loretta; Tom McGowan - Keith; John Boylan - Elevator Man; Hannah Cox - Jessica's Mother; Julie Janney - Cynthia; Rich Hawkins - Jessica's Father; Juliet Taylor; Jeff Mazzola - New York Taxi Dispatcher; Tom Tammi - Harold Reed; Calvin Trillin - Uncle Milton; Donald Lee - Seattle Detective; Matt Smith - Mailman
Credit
Charley Beal - Art Director, Gershon Ginsburg - Art Director, James W. Skotchdopole - Associate Producer, Delia Ephron - Associate Producer, Jane Bartelme - Associate Producer, Juliet Taylor - Casting, Judy Ruskin - Costume Designer, Nora Ephron - Director, Robert Reitano - Editor, Lynda Obst - Executive Producer, Patrick Crowley - Executive Producer, Marc Shaiman - Composer (Music Score), Leonard Engelman - Makeup, Kevin Jewison - Camera Operator, Jeffrey Townsend - Production Designer, Sven Nykvist - Cinematographer, Gary Foster - Producer, Clay Griffith - Set Designer, Charles Daboub, Jr. - Set Designer, Jeff Arch - Screen Story, Larry Atlas - Screenwriter, Nora Ephron - Screenwriter, David S. Ward - Screenwriter, Jeff Arch - Screenwriter
The film was inspired by An Affair to Remember and used both its theme song and clips from the film in critical scenes. The climactic meeting at the top of the Empire State Building is a reference to a reunion between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember that fails to happen because the Kerr character is struck by a car while en route. At one point, some of the characters discuss Affair, with Sam commenting that it sounds like a "chick movie."
Sam Baldwin, a Chicagoarchitect, has lost his wife (Carey Lowell) to cancer. He and his young son Jonah move to Seattle, Washington to make a fresh start, but Sam is still disconsolate. On Christmas Eve, Jonah calls into a national radio advice show and persuades his father to go on the air with him to talk about how much he misses his wife. Thousands of women around the country, touched by Sam's story, send him letters. One letter is from Annie Reed, a journalist from Baltimore, Maryland, engaged to a nice but sneeze-prone man named Walter (Bill Pullman) who feels that there is something missing.
Meanwhile, Jonah, who has been working his way through the flood of mail, finds Annie's missive and likes that it mentions the Baltimore Orioles. He tries to convince his father to go to New York City to meet her on Valentine's Day, but Sam loses his temper and refuses. Sam begins to see a coworker, Victoria, who Jonah cannot bear because, among other things, she "acts like a ho" and "laughs like a hyena". On the advice of a friend, Jonah mails a letter to Annie saying to meet his father at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day. At the airport, while waiting for Victoria, Sam sees Annie getting off the plane and is momentarily entranced.
Annie, on a whim, has traveled to Seattle to meet Sam. She watches him and Jonah playing on the beach together, and on the advice of a friend, Becky, she decides to meet and talk to him. Next day, she sees Sam with his sister Suzy, and thinking she is his girlfriend, stops in the middle of the street. Sam recognizes her, and says hello; all she can respond is hello back, a reference to the movie An Affair to Remember, which she later tells Becky about. Annie then decides she has been being silly and nervous, and goes to New York to meet Walter.
Jonah flies to New York and takes a taxi to the Empire State Building, saying he's going to meet his new mother. Sam, in pursuit, catches up with Jonah, who hasn't found Annie. Meanwhile Annie sees the Empire State Building from the restaurant at which she is eating, and breaks up with her fiancé. Jonah and Sam get on the down elevator just before Annie reaches the top of the building. There she finds Jonah's backpack with a teddy bear in it, not knowing who it belongs to. Jonah and Sam come back to the top to find the backpack, where they meet Annie for the first time.
The film won four awards at different ceremonies. Meg Ryan won the award for Funniest Actress in a Leading Role at the American Comedy Awards. At the 1994 Young Artist Awards, Ross Malinger won the award for Best Actor Under Ten in a Motion Picture and the film itself won Outstanding Family Motion Picture for Comedy.
