And although I love Rosie O’Donnell’s quippy “you don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie,” and still squeal with delight every time Tom Hanks reaches out toward Meg Ryan and asks, “Shall we?,” the part of this movie that I carry with me is Tom Hanks looking up at his son while atop the Empire State Building and saying, “You’re all I’ve got.”Īllow me set the scene: At the end of Sleepless, before that magical “Shall we?,” Seattle widower Sam Baldwin (Hanks) travels to the Empire State Building in New York City in pursuit of his 8-year-old son Jonah (Ross Malinger), who has made the same trip alone, hoping to meet Annie Reed (Ryan), a woman who fell in love with Sam and wrote him a letter after hearing him talk about his grief on the radio, because Jonah believes Sam and Annie are Made For Each Other. Since then, I’ve cut back on my Sleepless viewing time, but when you watch a movie that many times, pieces of it stay with you forever. I once held a double feature in which the only movie viewed was Sleepless in Seattle. I watched it when I was stressed or bored or homesick or when I just wanted to watch a movie. Running time: 104 min.During the fall semester of my freshman year of college, I decided my comfort blanket would be 1993’s seminal romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle. ![]() ![]() Reviewed at the Writers Guild of America Theater, Beverly Hills, June 4, 1993. Skotchdopole assistant director, Skotchdopole casting, Juliet Taylor. Ward, Jeff Arch, story by Arch.Ĭamera (Technicolor), Sven Nykvist editor, Robert Reitano music, Marc Shaiman production design, Jeffrey Townsend art direction, Gershon Ginsburg, Charley Beal set decoration, Clay Griffith costume design, Judy Ruskin sound (Dolby), Kirk Francis associate producers, Delia Ephron, Jane Bartelme, James W. Executive producers, Lynda Obst, Patrick Crowley. Tuned-in viewers may also feel the editing by virtue of the truncated appearances by some supporting players, though it’s also clear “Sleepless” is as long as it needed to be.Ī TriStar Pictures release of a Gary Foster production. ![]() On the tech side, Sven Nykvist’s camerawork does the romance justice, while Marc Shaiman’s music and the carefully chosen song score evoke their share of laughs but at times prove overbearing. Other supporting roles are generally strong, though Pullman is a bit less annoying than he should have been to prevent audiences from feeling undue sympathy toward his character near the finish. Hanks certainly figures to increase his stock as a well-rounded actor and not just a comic, while Ryan essentially plays the same character as “Sally,” with pleasing if predictable results. In fact, it’s precisely that emphasis here that may prevent “Sleepless” from being quite the sleeper it could have been. More than anything else, “Sleepless” may be a boon to 20th Century Fox, spurring rentals of “ An Affair to Remember,” which is used not only as a key plot device but as a running gag throughout - demonstrating a movie whose squishy romantic elements appeal to women more than men. And since the big question isn’t “if,” but “when” and “how,” the film loses considerable momentum about two-thirds through before rallying for a heart-tugging finale. Yet for all the enjoyable flourishes, and there are many, Ephron keeps pausing to remind us, through various contrivances, that this is a movie, making it hard for anyone to really get lost in the story. There are some extremely amusing explorations of dating mores, plus more somber moments - providing Hanks an opportunity to strut his dramatic stuff - delving into Sam’s almost tangible grief. The movie pursues a parallel structure, with Sam’s friends and son Jonah (Malinger) pushing him toward opening up while Annie voices her own doubts only to her co-worker Becky (Rosie O’Donnell) and creating a strain on her relationship with her fiance. She finds herself increasingly obsessed with “ Sleepless in Seattle,” Sam’s on-air designation, fearing that she may be settling for “OK” on the romance scale instead of actually finding “magic.” ![]() Sam reluctantly gets on the line and ends up spilling his guts, showing such sensitivity that thousands of women write in offering to cure his sorrowful insomnia.Īmong those listening is Annie (Ryan), a just-engaged newspaper reporter whose husband-to-be Walter (Bill Pullman) is sensible but not very exciting. Sam (Hanks) is still grieving over the death of his wife (Carey Lowell, seen in flashback) when his son phones a late night radio call-in show saying he thinks the solution is for dad to remarry.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |