Review of Sleepless in Seattle (1993) by Daniel S — 09 Dec 2018

After living in Seattle for 3 years, I finally got around to watching this. And I was sorely disappointed. Yes, Tom Hanks is wonderful, as is Tom Hanks' wont. And yes it all looks lovely as is Nora Ephron's wont.

And yes, I got a kick out of the shots of Seattle. But beyond that there was too much I took issue with. For instance, I don't like the fact that they set up Tom Hanks' dead wife as the great love of his life, only to shunt her to one side as soon as Meg Ryan comes along.

If the point of the film is that they're destined to be with one another and they won't meet until much later, then why do you need the dead first wife? It just serves to confuse and complicate things unnecessarily.

I don't like the fact that the kid is the biggest driving force behind making Tom forget about his past love, who is also the child's mother. I understand him wanting his dad to be happy, but becoming obsessed with the notion that this one woman's letter, no different from any other, is definitely from the most incredible woman since the one that birthed him, just seems really weird and sad and unpleasant.

It's possible something like that might happen in real life, kids are weird, but to present it as a wonderfully romantic thing is just wrong. I don't like that a huge moment of drama in the film towards the end is skipped out on entirely for some reason, a decision made especially dull by the relative lack of other drama in the rest of the runtime.

I think these kinds of gimmicky rom coms won't work if you're not on board with the central conceit, and I am definitely not with this. Humbug. Plus I never get a good vibe from Meg Ryan, although she has nice, ginormous, 90s hair in this.