← Back to Reviews
 

Sleepless in Seattle


One of 1993's biggest box office hits, Sleepless in Seattle was the ultimate date movie in '93 and the most popular of the three films that its stars, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, made together.

Hanks plays Sam Baldwin, a widower who is thrown for a loop when his son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), calls a radio talk show headlined by a Dr. Marcia Fieldstone, and confesses that his father has not been sleeping since his mom died and that he really needs to find a wife. To placate Jonah, Sam takes the phone and explains to Marcia how amazing his late wife, Maggie, was, which prompts hundreds of letters from women all over the country willing to marry Sam.

One of the women who hears Sam on the radio is Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) a newspaper columnist, engaged to be married and traveling cross country to spend Christmas with her fiancee and finds herself unable to get Sam out of her mind and becomes determined to meet this lovely, lonely man.

Director and co-writer Nora Ephron has crafted an intelligent and riveting love story that earns its cinematic credentials with the fact that the two leads never share the screen together until the final scene of the movie, a cinematic ploy that alternately aggravates and fascinates the viewer as we watch these two people who have never met but we know immediately belong together, a knowledge that, at some points, might have you literally yelling at the movie screen because the leisurely pacing of the story and the fact that the leads never actually meet just puts the viewer completely behind this long distance relationship becoming a reality.

Ephron gets first rate performances from her hand-picked cast...Hanks has rarely been more sexy and appealing and somehow the chemistry he creates with Ryan is off the charts, even though they don't do any scenes together. Victor Garber, Hank's real-life wife, Rita Wilson, and Rob Reiner have their moments as friends of Sam's as does Rosie McDonnell as Annie's boss and best friend and Bill Pullman as Annie's fiancee. Malinger is absolutely adorable as Jonah.

A first rate love story with charismatic stars taking us on a cinematic journey that charms from beginning to end.