Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Directed by Nora Ephron
After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Across the country, an engaged woman becomes convinced that they belong together, despite their never having met. Will their paths collide despite the odds?
5 connections found
View:
5 films that influenced Sleepless in Seattle
What critics say influenced Sleepless in Seattle
The dialogue is witty and there are a few truly hilarious scenes such as Rita Wilson (Hanks' real-life wife) trying in vein to explain why women love "An Affair to Remember" to two men.
A leitmotif is the old Cary Grant-Deborah Kerr weepie "An Affair to Remember", and its key scene on the Empire State Building is echoed with a nice twist in"Sleepless in Seattle".
Evoked by "Sleepless in Seattle," through clips and numerous references in dialogue and soundtrack music, is Leo McCarey's sentimental 1957 classic "An Affair to Remember," a movie that instantly reduces every woman in the new film to tears.
Ephron is smart enough to kid the whole genre by including several clips from the Cary Grant-Deborah Kerr tear-jerker An Affair to Remember and teasing the women who melt at that movie's notion of romantic destiny.
The movie's oh so romantic theory is that two people can be meant to be together, and that something like a radio show can put them on a crash course towards each other, as Annie writes to Sam and gives him rendezvous on top of Empire State Building on Valentine's Day, just like in her favorite movie "An Affair to Remember".
By its own admission, this film is intended as a throwback to the screen romances of the past (An Affair to Remember in particular, which is cited numerous times, and borrowed from explicitly and implicitly).
The best romantic movies aren't these dreamy tales of lovers destined for happiness; they're the movies--Gone With the Wind, His Girl Friday and Adam's Rib come to mind--that dramatize exactly why two characters are perfectly matched.
The best romantic movies aren't these dreamy tales of lovers destined for happiness; they're the movies--Gone With the Wind, His Girl Friday and Adam's Rib come to mind--that dramatize exactly why two characters are perfectly matched.
And the passage of decades has only strengthened the film's reputation - so much so that in 1993's Sleepless In Seattle, when Tom Hanks is called upon to name the ultimate guys' movie, he invokes The Dirty Dozen.
Advertisement
The best romantic movies aren't these dreamy tales of lovers destined for happiness; they're the movies--Gone With the Wind, His Girl Friday and Adam's Rib come to mind--that dramatize exactly why two characters are perfectly matched.