Sleepless in Seattle

"Annie: [watching An Affair to Remember] Now that was when people knew how to be in love. They knew it! Time, distance... nothing could separate them because they knew. It was right. It was real. It was... Becky: A movie! That's your problem! You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie."

Sleeper Hit from the early Nineties which infused a fluffy Romantic Comedy with a degree of Post Modernism. As director/co-writer Nora Ephron put it, "Our dream was to make a movie about how movies screw up your brain about love and then if we did a good job, we would become one of the movies that screwed up people's brains about love forever."

Tom Hanks is Sam Baldwin, a widower grieving over his wife's death. His cutie son Jonah's idea of helping him involves calling a radio talk show and putting his dad on the air. Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) happens to tune in when this happens and she falls in love with him. Sam and Annie then spend the rest of the movie trying to find reasons not to meet. You can guess what happens at the end.

The film is a bit nontraditional in that the romantic leads don't even meet.


 * Adorably Precocious Child: Jonah is absolutely adorable, and way too smart for his age.
 * Bags of Letters
 * Blind Date
 * Boy Meets Girl
 * Deadpan Snarker: Sam
 * Disposable Fiance: Walter, possibly the most disposable of all disposable fiances.
 * Functional Genre Savvy: Annie, played with and lampshaded.
 * Held Gaze: On the Anniversary Edition DVD cover shows Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan looking into each other's eyes like this because it is the quintessential "romantic" pose.
 * Hero of Another Story: At one point the radio show opens with clips of two other memorable callers that are apparently roughly on par with Sam's story.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Jonah was (the first voice of) T.J. Detweiler.
 * The Hyena: That horrendously annoying woman Sam dates. Jonah even says she sounds like a hyena.
 * I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Walter at the end.
 * Missing Mom
 * Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: Walter's allergies.
 * The Mountains of Illinois: Seattle has no subway.
 * No Romantic Resolution: What happens after they meet?
 * Parent with New Paramour: At one point, Sam dates a woman who Jonah hates.
 * Post Modernism
 * Race For Your Love
 * Stalker with a Crush: Annie looks Sam up on the high-tech 90's computer and pretty much stalks him through the city.
 * You Watch Too Much X: See Becky's quote at the top of the page.