SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is in love with movie love
The 1993 rom-com works because the frothiness is the joke and the point.
There’s a lot that’s unbelievable about Sleepless in Seattle, but looking back 30 years, the most astounding thing might be its box office haul.
Nora Ephron’s romantic comedy was released at the height of the summer movie season in 1993, just two weeks after the juggernaut that was Jurassic Park, and sandwiched between tent poles from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise. If you’ve been listening to the podcast You Must Remember This’ “Erotic 90s” series, you know that adults were seeking out steamier fare like Indecent Proposal in 1993 – and if they wanted a romantic comedy, Ivan Reitman’s Dave was still kicking about.
But the film was a surprise hit, opening second at the box office, just under Jurassic Park and displacing Schwarzenegger’s now-notorious Last Action Hero in the process. It became the sleeper hit of the summer, grossing $127 million at the North American box office and another $100 million globally; domestically, it was the fourth-highest grosser of 1993. It’s now regarded as one of the classic rom-coms, and the pairing of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan – who had teamed in the cult comedy Joe Versus the Volcano a few years prior – was so embraced that they reunited with Ephron a few years later for You’ve Got Mail. Not bad for two people who share less than five minutes of screen time.
Thirty years later, it seems almost shocking that a simple rom-com could command the box office. While there are outliers like Crazy Rich Asians, today, this is the type of film that would be relegated to streaming or Hallmark. But that summer, it was one of the most enjoyed and discussed movies. Despite being dismissed by many as a “chick flick” – a phrase the movie’s dialogue helped to popularize – I recall both of my parents speaking fondly about it that summer (and, indeed, twice within the last three years, I’ve been the one watching it on my couch – while my wife, who prefers You’ve Got Mail – is usually occupied with something else).
So, what was it that so captured audiences with this simple little PG-rated charmer? I think it comes down to two things – the fact that Ephron made a highly enjoyable and fizzy movie and that, more than being in love, audiences love movies about love.
An affair to remember
Sleepless in Seattle is about a widower named Sam (Tom Hanks) who moves to the famously rainy city from Chicago following his wife’s death. About a year and a half later, on Christmas Eve, his son calls a radio therapist to help Sam snap out of his funk and hopefully find a new wife. The conversation captures the attention of women across the country – including Annie (Meg Ryan), a journalist in Baltimore who is moved to tears by the conversation. Despite being engaged to a perfectly nice, if dull, man (Bill Pullman), Annie uses her resources – and breaks about a hundred ethical principles – to track down Sam and see if they’re meant to be together.
Ephron was, of course, a celebrated writer back into the 1970s who transitioned into screenwriting in the 1980s. Her script for Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally … is a funny, smart and romantic look at relationships, and the film is the rare one to be just as celebrated for its screenwriter as its director. And hands-down, if I’m pressed to pick my favorite romantic comedy, I’m going with the Billy Crystal/Meg Ryan classic. Almost 40 years later, the film is still funny and the chemistry between Crystal and Ryan is off the charts; I’ve seen the film a half-dozen times and the New Year’s Eve declaration of love still gets me.
Whereas When Harry Met Sally… was a hip and smart exploration of modern relationships and the age-old question of whether people of the opposite sex can just be friends (people forget that that movie’s answer is “no”), Sleepless in Seattle is a more old-fashioned romance, concerned with questions of destiny and musings about magic. While its premise might seem a little less out there these days – it’s easy to imagine a world in which Sam is a podcast guest and everyone in the nation quickly Googles his info – its question of “love at first listen” is timeless. The distance between Sam and Annie, and the fact that they don’t know each other, is classic, frothy romance material, and Ephron’s script loves to find the moments of coincidence (or is it magic?) – such as Annie and Sam speaking the same words a country apart or sharing similar senses of humor – that suggest destiny is pulling some strings (of course, when she begins digging, Annie begins giving fate a hand).
It’s a premise that could easily collapse under its weightlessness, smothered in schmaltz, and indeed Jeff Arch’s original concept (Ephron heavily rewrote it after four previous passes) was a more straightforward romantic drama. Ephron brings a funnier, peppier tone and an ironic detachment that grounds the froth without losing it altogether. The script is not just about destiny and instead loves to explore digressions that observe familial banality (the early discussion about allergies – “Harold is allergic to bees’ – really tickles me), differences between men and women, and Sam’s navigation of the new dating world (Rob Reiner critiquing Hanks’ butt is classic). It’s also well aware of both the emotional weight Sam carries as well as the absurdity of Annie’s plan and gives both characters effective and funny sounding boards in characters played by Reiner, Rosie O’ Donnell and Rita Wilson.
Like magic
It would be fairly easy for Ryan to play Annie as a dew-eyed young woman chasing a fairy tale, but the actress brings grounding and smarts to the role (even if, again, Annie’s journalistic practices should not be endorsed). Ryan captures the push-pull going on inside of Annie, who knows she has a good man and a smart choice in Walter – who the film wisely never portrays as anything other than sympathetic, if a bit of a drip – but her effervescent nature goes a long way toward selling her growing belief in destiny without writing her off as flighty or naïve. And while the film presents Sam as sympathetic from the get-go, making it easy to understand why Annie would fall for him, Ryan has to do a lot of shorthand with her energy and joy to make us confident that even if he doesn’t know her, Sam will be just as smitten at first sight as she was at first listen. It works, and somehow the two have a chemistry that is palpable even though they rarely share the screen.
Hanks was not yet in his “America’s Dad” phase and was just at the beginning of a comeback that would transition into one of the greatest stretches an actor has enjoyed. After getting raves in 1988 – as well as an Oscar nomination – for Big, Hanks had floundered a bit. There were the box office and critical disappointments of The ‘Burbs (which is good, actually) and Turner and Hooch (which is not), and the outright disaster of Bonfire of the Vanities, which might compete with Last Action Hero as one of the most notorious fiascos of the 1990s. In 1992, he had critical and commercial success with A League of Their Own (maybe my favorite of his comedic performances), and then Sleepless in Seattle confirmed how much audiences enjoyed him. A few months later, he’d deliver an Academy Award-winning performance in Philadelphia, and his legacy would be secure.
It’s easy to think any actor could do what Hanks does in Sleepless, but I think it’s because he makes it look so easy. His performance as Sam is perfectly calibrated, whereas I could foresee a lesser actor miscalculating. Too flippant and funny, and we’d lose the gravity. Too dour and depressed and we’re stuck with a sad sack. Hanks wisely plays Sam as sad, but not depressed or withdrawn. The actor’s secret comedic weapon has always been his wryness – and his crankiness – and he brings both out here. I particularly enjoyed his exasperation with his son (his temper tantrum about going away to get laid leads to the film’s funniest exclamation – “eight!”) and the bemusement Sam has over the women throwing themselves at him. Hanks is, of course, a fantastic everyman, and like Ryan, he’s able to anchor the film to reality while also keeping a spark of hope alive that allows the romance to work.
Ephron was also just very good at this, and she’s able to shift from funny conversations to aching romantic moments quickly, using some fizzy cinematography, focusing on her actor’s staring outward longingly and goosing the soundtrack with jazz standards that can’t help but recall weddings, parties and any other moment where we’ve all felt those fluttering bursts of romance. A scene where Annie and Walter dance at a New Year’s Eve party and it dawns on her that some spark is missing is coupled by an effective moment where Sam gazes out at fireworks on the other end of the country, and it connects them without a word (and it was only on this viewing that I realize that it makes no sense, given that it’s implied they’re seeing countdowns at the same time despite being time zones away).
In short, people fell for Sleepless in Seattle because despite being a frothy lark, it’s a very well made frothy lark. But I think the film has another secret weapon that goes beyond its main romance. We’re not really in love with Annie and Sam. We’re in love with the movies.
Big screen romance
One of the most remarked upon things about Sleepless in Seattle is that it’s the rare romantic comedy that works despite its two leads never occupying the same space or sharing dialogue for more than a few minutes. And I actually think that’s the secret to its success. Because, deep down, we don’t want to see Sam and Annie fall in love and form a relationship so much as we just want to see them take that big leap and end up at the Empire State Building in the final scene.
If, in reality, two people made the decisions they made, most of us would roll our eyes or try to talk them out of it. Throughout the movie, both Sam and Annie have the opportunity to make relationship choices most of us would deem wise. She is engaged to a man who loves her, is kind and who she seems to really like. Sam is taking his first tentative steps back into the dating pool with Victoria, cautiously seeing where it leads. It’s smart, but there’s the sense that both are seeking some kind of deeper spark or, to use their term, magic. He’s resigned to the fact that no one will capture him with the same intensity or wonder that he felt with his wife; she initially poo-poo’s the idea of destiny or fate and instead believes in just doing the sensible thing. Both of them, however, are inextricably drawn to the each other and to their fate in the final scene.
And so are we. Even though we’d cringe at any of our friends making these same declarations or pronouncements, we find ourselves rooting for them to leave their respective partners and make the big gesture to head to the top of the Empire State Building. When they see each other in the final scene and exchange one line together before the credits roll, we don’t worry about whether they’ll have any real-life chemistry or be compatible when the fantasy turns to reality; we roll with it because the big gesture was the point, and we know this is the movies, where “happily ever after” is assured.
It’s the big leaps that often make people poke fun at the rom-com genre or chalk it up as a guilty pleasure. But Sleepless in Seattle doesn’t provoke an eye roll, and it’s because Ephron and her cast are in on its big secret: We all know this is an only-in-the-movies situation with no aspiration to reality, and that’s okay. Because this isn’t about Annie and Sam. What’s really pulling at our hearts – and there’s – it how much we love the romanticism that only exists in the movies and that we’re not so much in love with the budding relationship so much as the big gesture that can only fit on the big screen.
Much of the film’s dialogue concerns how the movies impact us and shape our perceptions of relationships and life. The old weepy An Affair to Remember is a particular touchstone, mentioned several times, and the touchstone for the final scene. Sam and his friends dismiss it as a chick flick, but their own views of friendship and meaning have been shaped by movies like The Dirty Dozen. This is a film where people aren’t taking their cues from reality and rationality but from pop culture; and because it’s all in a movie, we’re allowed to be caught up in it as well. The movie sidesteps any criticism about frothiness because it it admits “yep, it’s frothy; that’s why we go to the movies.” And it works.
That’s not to say that the script isn’t funny or smart (it’s both) or that Hanks and Ryan’s chemistry doesn’t go a long way (and You’ve Got Mail might, on any given day, be the film I enjoy more because of the way it coasts on both their chemistry and anti-chemistry). But in the end, the same thing that propels Annie and Sam to the Empire State Building is the same thing that invests us in their quest to get there: the movies promise a love and magic that only exists on the other side of the screen. We might laugh about it in our day-to-day, but for two hours, we’re allowed to revel in the magic. It’s why Sleepless in Seattle completely works, and why audiences in 1993 – and viewers today – fell in love with it.