Sleepless in Seattle

Plot synopsis:
Sam Baldwin, a Chicago architect, has lost his wife (Carey Lowell) to cancer. He counsels his 8 year old son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), that its hard to understand why she had to die, warning his son that if a person starts asking that question, they just go crazy.Sam decides he and Jonah should move to Seattle, Washington to make a fresh start. Sixteen months later Sam is still disconsolate and Jonah is worried. So, on Christmas Eve, Jonah calls Dr. Marcia Fieldstone, a clinical psychologist who hosts a national radio talk show, and he requests a new wife for his father. Dr. Fieldstone persuades Jonah to put Sam on the phone. Sam is upset, but he talks to Dr. Fieldstone about how hes been taking it a day at a time and that hes not sure he could ever love another woman. He admits that it would be best if Jonah had a mother figure. When Dr. Fieldstone learns that Sam has trouble sleeping, she decides to refer to him as Sleepless in Seattle.Thousands of women around the country, touched by the sad story of Sleepless in Seattle, send him letters (Jonah secretly provides Dr. Fieldstone with the address). Annie Reed, a journalist from Baltimore, Maryland, engaged to a nice but allergy-prone man named Walter (Bill Pullman), also hears the show with Dr. Fieldstone. Annie has been having doubts about her future with Walter and she begins to wonder about a possible connection between her and Sam. She actually drafts a letter to Sam, but decides not to send it. Her friend and co-worker, Becky (Rosie ODonnell) secretly sends it to Sam.Jonah, who has been working his way through the flood of mail, finds Annie's missive and thinks the fact that shes a fan of Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles is a "sign." The movie includes a number of such signs or omens. Jonah tries to convince his father to go to New York City to meet Annie at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day (as her letter suggested), but Sam says no, its too far away.Sam has resisted dating anyone, but after he comes home from work one afternoon to find Jonah sitting very close and listening to records with a precocious young girl named Jessica (Gaby Hoffmann), he feels an urgent need to try and find a mother-type for Jonah. Sam thinks it's probably best to associate with women whom he already knows, so he calls an acquaintance from work, Victoria (Barbara Garrick), and arranges a date.Jonah immediately dislikes Victoria her, because he didnt select her (he wants Sam to meet Annie) and she has a cackling, hyena-like laugh. On the advice of Jessica, Jonah mails a letter to Annie, pretending to be Sam and agreeing to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day. Annie decides to do a news story on Sleepless in Seattle, and she tells Walter that she needs to travel to Chicago to do an interview for the story. She then flies out to Seattle.Coincidentally, Sam and Jonah are at the airport in Seattle, dropping Victoria off for a flight, and Annie arrives at the same gate. Sam sees her and is immediately attracted, however she quickly disappears into the crowd.Annie rents a car and drives to Sams house. Sam and Jonah had returned from the airport and are just taking a small boat out for a ride. Annie is able to follow them in her car, as they stay close to land. She watches Sam and Jonah playing on the beach together, but she doesnt try to approach them. She talks to Becky about it that night and decides that the next day, she will go up and talk to Sam. The next day, she gets out of her car and starts across the street, but stops short when she sees Sam and Jonah hugging Sams sister, who came to visit. A truck driver blasts his horn at Annie, as shes standing in traffic. Sam looks up, sees her, and approaches her. They exchange hellos. Rather than wait for traffic to clear and go on across the street, Annie decides she is being silly about the whole thing, that Sam obviously has a girlfriend, and she goes back to New York and Walter.Jessica decides that Jonah should go to New York by himself to meet Annie, since Sam wont go. She then calls and makes the flight reservation. Jonah manages to get to New York and takes a taxi to the Empire State Building, telling the driver that he's going to meet his new mother. Once Sam finds out from Jessica where Jonah went, he rushes off in pursuit. He doesnt catch up to Jonah until he gets to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, where Jonah has been patiently waiting for Annie to appear.Meanwhile, Annie is at dinner with Walter at a high rise across the way. Shes explaining the entire Sleepless in Seattle story to Walter. Walther doesnt want to be someone that Annie settles for in life, so he agrees to take back the ring he had given her. Annie then hurries on over to the Empire State Building just in case Sams letter was legitimate.Jonah and Sam get on the down elevator just as Annie is exiting the elevator shes on. They miss each other. However, Annie discovers Jonah's backpack with Howard, his teddy bear, inside. As shes pondering about that, Jonah and Sam come back out to the observation deck to retrieve the backpack, and they see and meet Annie for the first time.Sam notices the guard getting antsy, as the observation floor is officially closed, and says, We better go, then holds out his hand to Annie and adds, shall we?Jimmy Durante is singing Make Someone Happy as the camera pans around the outside of the Empire State Building, with the windows lit up like red hearts on each side, then the scene draws way back into space so that we see an outline of the entire U.S. with fireworks shooting high above as the movie ends.

Tags: dramatic, romantic, boring, comedy

Review:
That said, it's a high-end chick flick, which probably a few guys might enjoy, unless they happen to be the exploding helicopter type^^;  This movie feels more like a modern day adaptation of the classic romance "An Affair To Remember," and it keeps referencing it too (In fact, the Cary Grant classic is very integral to the plot).
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in a movie where they are hardly onscreen together and yet we feel both of their characters infatuation.
All valid questions that are explored and addressed in Nora Ephron's touching and romantic `Sleepless In Seattle,' starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
Meg Ryan, as well, is an accomplished actor who can play drama as well as comedy (check out her performance in `When A Man Loves A Woman'), but she really sparkles in romantic comedies like this one, and she is absolutely perfect for the role of Annie (just as she was for her role in `You've Got Mail').
Essentially a poignant and heart-felt treatise by Nora Ephron on life and love, `Sleepless In Seattle' is a film that offers a multitude of rewards if you are simply willing to reach out and open yourself up to it.
Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) hears, on a late night talk show, about a young boy Jonah Baldwin (Ross Malinger) and his dad Sam (Tom Hanks) missing their dead mother/spouse.
This is a movie with characters and performances which are appealing, and it is an old-fashioned, feel-good love story.
To fall in love with just a voice and a story, never seeing nor knowing who it is?Title: SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE Directed by: Norah Ephron Starring: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman and Ross Maligner Rated: PG for some language Rating: 7.5/10 105 Minutes.
Tom Hanks is his usual steady, likable self in "Sleepless in Seattle," a steady, likable movie that also benefits from one of Meg Ryan's more restrained (i.e. less obviously, annoyingly cute) performances.It's their talent that helped me overlook some of the film's more noticeable flaws, particularly its treatment of the eventually-to-be-rejected Other Man and Other Woman.
Both Hanks' and Ryan's "unsuitable" partners appear to be perfectly nice people, yet the movie casually dismisses them over one little flaw apiece--the woman laughs like a hyena and the man has terrible allergies.
I have always felt both Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are over-rated actors and this movie is a living proof of that.
Stephen Spielberg was a big proponent of this kind of thinking in many of his early films.Combine that with the always-annoying Meg Ryan, who has yet to make a good movie, and you have an extremely overrated film in "Sleepless In Seattle.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy corny, romantic movies, but Meg Ryan's character takes it to the extreme.
The three movies, all starring Meg Ryan, and Tom Hanks for the last two, form an unofficial trilogy that explores an idea romances only tend to overfly: "what does it mean to be meant for each other?".And each film had an interesting angle.
I think this is a reason enough to love the film, if it doesn't reinvent the wheel and has it share of forgivable contrivances, let's give the credit to Ephron to have made a romance whose concept is beautifully rendered in the poster where the two protagonists stare at each other while obviously being many time zones apart."Sleepless in Seattle" has a shamelessly romantic premise but it knows how to insert it into the realities of life.
So Sam understand that staying in Chicago is a no-option as it will constantly remind him of his wife so he moves to Seattle, and the opening credits start.Meanwhile we meet Annie, an optimistic woman engaged with Walter, the nicest man ever but who seems to suffer from every kind of allergy, the man is played by Bill Pullman, and I'm glad that for the most ungrateful role as the disposable fiancé, they picked someone who could have been believable in Hanks' shoes.
Ryan is just adorable as the idealistic girl floating on a cloud until a fateful night where she listens to a radio program named "Sleepless in Seattle" and where Jonah talks about his father's difficulties to mourn his mother, later Sam takes the phone and opens his hearts to millions of listeners, especially female, creating the first and unique cinematic collective case of "love at first hearing".Annie doesn't exactly love Sam but she just can't resist contemplating the possibility that he might be the one, there's something just too formal with Walter and she's scared at the prospect of spending her whole life with "what if" questions.
I guess the most interesting part from the film is that Sam wasn't stuck in his "lonely widower" position and decided to take the reins of his life and date women, and even more surprisingly, there was some genuine chemistry with Victoria (Barbara Garrick) but it seems like her hyena-like laughing was the equivalent of David's allergy, the obligatory mood killer.I'm not sure I liked the way Jonah behaved, too precociously at times to be believable but those where the 90's.
Naturally, the romance does an excellent job at creating the perfect missed opportunities, we know the game, we've been there, and it's part of the deal.And at that point of the review, my only regret is that I didn't see "An Affair to Remember", I would have loved to juxtapose the two movies.
But I love how the film is used as a running gag showing that there are a few irremediable differences between men and women (something that wouldn't pass today given the current gender ramifications, characters would ask "what's a man?", "what's a woman?") and I love how the film is used as leitmotif, just as other impossible love stories like "Casablanca" in "When Harry Met Sally..;" and "Pride and Prejudice" in "You've Got M@il".And it's interesting you know because Ephron separates between love as-in-the-movies and love as-in-her-movies, but at the end, they just work the same, maybe the underlying message is "yes, real life can work like in the movies"..
Haven't actually laughed out loud at a movie since a very long time.Some of the scenes were so simple but hilarious.Meg and Tom's chemistry was incredible.The story was different, heartfelt, and beautiful.
Of course his toothy grin and mop of hair sweep aside any charges of embarrassing cringeworthiness, or at least that's what the director would have you think.I found the writing clichéd and gauche (a woman character cries when recounting the story of the "An Affair To Remember", Cary Grant / Deborah Kerr vehicle which informs much of the plot here; like when was the last time you cried explaining a movie plot), the thirty-something characters are cardboard-thin and irritating plus it seemed there had to be some old romantic song playing in the background of almost every scene.I couldn't get excited by the acting either, there being no chance for Hanks and Ryan to gell as they don't actually get together until their anti-climactic meeting atop the Empire State Building.
Early Plot points of the movieA lot of people who have viewed Sleepless In Seattle, see it as nothing more than a chick flick, a date movie, or just a plain old predictable romantic comedy.
Nora Ephron, put it this way when she said, "This is not a film about romance, this is a film about romance in the movies", and during Sleepless we are given many references to An Affair to Remember to illustrate just that.The film opens in Chicago with Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) and his son Jonah, at the funeral of Sam's wife Maggie.
Of course, you probably know that going in, but this film gets us there with a keen sense of humor, terrific characters, and a story not only about fate, but whether falling in love with someone you never met is possible.Rosie O'Donnell is perfectly cast as Meg's friend Becky, and delivers her lines in such a matter-of-fact tone that lines like "A movie!
His scenes alone are worth taking time to  watch Sleepless.Nora Ephron deserves high praise for having given us this romantic-comedy gem.
The fact that this movie was and is a success.....I believe rests on the performances of the lead actors:  Hanks and Meg Ryan.
It's got two likable stars in the lead roles, some quirky supporting characters and a love story as old as the hills.And yet it remained one of those films I felt I should be liking a lot more than I actually was.
Then one incident happens which changes everything.Surely one of the best Romantic movies I have seen so far, having usually seen the Tom Hanks in his Dan Brown films, it was weird for me watching him so young.
Then one incident happens which changes everything.Surely one of the best Romantic movies I have seen so far, having usually seen the Tom Hanks in his Dan Brown films, it was weird for me watching him so young.
I personally fell in love with her eyes and God Tom Hanks looked handsome when he had hair, and the story is of the simpler time, I think for today's generation it will serve as a reminder that life doesn't have to be fast-paced.
I love this movie.Plot In A Paragraph: Eighteen months after losing his wife, Sam (Tom Hanks) is still grieving and can't sleep.
Among the many women who hear Sam's story and fall in love with him solely because of it is Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) a Baltimore-based newspaper writer.
I will add I also liked the fact that they didn't feel the need to make the Bill Pullman character a jerk (as is usual the case with his type of role in romantic comedies) One of my favourite Tom Hanks movies, one of my favourite Meg Ryan movies and one of my favourite romantic comedies.
This is my favorite romantic comedy, a movie about recently widowed Sam (Tom Hanks) who is seeking a new wife.
While she is engaged, her strange and awkward fiancé led her to think twice on love and to attempt to meet Sam.Filmed and set in Seattle, Washington, this movie captures the beauty and relaxing atmosphere of the city and the coolness and freshness of the city's weather.
"Sleepless in Seattle" comes very close to being the ideal contemporary American love story, and even with my reservations about some of the things in the film, I still feel it's a very good one.
The key moment is when Rosie O'Donnell, as Miss Ryan's best friend, tells her flat out while watching "An Affair to Remember" that what she wants is not to be in love, but "to be in love in a movie." After all, how many of us—single and once-single—have not looked at movies like "Casablanca," "An Affair to Remember," "At First Sight," and such and not fantasized about passion that only seems to exist when an actor and actress play make-believe before a camera?Speaking of other films: that is another thing I adored about "Sleepless in Seattle." It has an uncanny ability to recall other films to effect—sometimes comedic, sometimes insightful.
A favorite moment of mine is when Mr. Hanks explains to his eight-year-old son (extremely well-acted by Ross Malinger) why he is uncomfortable about rushing into a new relationship so soon: he asks him if he ever saw "Fatal Attraction." The biggest homage(s), though, goes back to "An Affair to Remember." That wonderful 1957 film is shown on television screens numerous times throughout the movie, and at key points, Hugo Friedhofer's score even plays on the soundtrack.
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are one of the most endearing cinematic pairs in Hollywood, Their chemistry is adorable.In this movie too, the bubbly Meg as Annie Reed and the simple, funny Hanks as Sam Baldwin win the heart of the audience.Another great aspect of the movie is the humor especially among the major characters.
In general, Sleepless in Seattle is just a charming romantic comedy, co-scripted and directed by When Harry Met Sally writer Nora Ephron.The idea to keep Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan apart for most of the movie is a dangerous one, but guess what, I found that it worked!
It's cool how Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) and Annie Reid (Meg Ryan) were pen pals who finally meet for the first time.
With Tom Hanks as 'Sam' and Meg Ryan as 'Annie' in the leading roles; you couldn't think of a better combination.
A superb romantic comedy, made great in the old fashioned way its creator Nora Ephron clearly has a great love for (a major joy of the film are the numerous references to, discussions about and even clips from classic romance movies): a great script, good direction, and genuine performances.
I also look forward to his (from the previous) hilarious comic performance in the Coen Brothers latest The Ladykillers).A perfect example of the preciseness and emotional truth of Hanks' performance is the first time the lady on the romance advice radio station gets him on the phone, when he tells about his own life, his problems and especially his late wife, i was struck by the perfect tone he achieved (and from judging Nora Ephron's other work, such as Mixed Nuts, this probably has more to do with him than her): when you talk about your own problems and your own life in a public environment like on the radio, you don't sound like you're trying to make people feel sorry for you, there is a certain slightly embarrassed, yet indescribably way you do it, and Hanks nails it beautifully, so that i'm still thinking about it a week later.Ephron's script is self-referential with the genre, yet it still believes in the traditional story of the genre, which is unashamedly sweet.With a gorgeous soundtrack of classic jazz vocalists, Sleepless in Seattle is a modern romance classic, one much loved by many people, which is an achievement to be admired..
Tom Hanks (Sam), Meg Ryan (Annie) and Ross Malinger (Jonah) all put in wonderful performances.
"Sleepless in Seattle"  is a movie about a man (Sam played by Tom Hanks) who lost his wife to cancer.
This causes a barrage of women including a woman in Baltimore (Annie superbly played by Meg Ryan) to send in letter dying to meet Sam who has now been dubbed "Sleepless in Seattle" by the radio program.
this was a cute idea for a movie, by living in seattle i know what they are talking about when they are talking about the city, other then that it was a great movie, very cute idea and tom hanks and meg ryan did a perfect job!.
Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are perfect as Sam and Annie who are made for each other.
The story is simple, remade from Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr's classic 'An Affair to Remember' and it's impossible to describe how good this movie makes you feel even if you've seen it countless times like I have!It definitely has 'classic' written all over it.
Movies like this are really our generation' great romantic love stories.
But upon watching SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, I was taken aback on how some romantic movies can be so entertaining!Maybe it's because I'm an avid Tom Hanks fan, or I have a liking for witty screenplays.
This was an all-time great movie, another success of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan - it's a tear jerker, and a movie to watch over and over!!!
And don't get me wrong - I really like this kind of movies, I like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
To quest after a nearly unobtainable goal.Meg Ryan, as well, is an accomplished actor who can play drama as well as comedy (check out her performance in "When A Man Loves A Woman"), but she really sparkles in romantic comedies like this one, and she is absolutely perfect for the role of Annie (just as she was for her role in "You've Got Mail").
and do I like him in this film?Well I suppose - This movie is about love and all its complications dealing with Sam / Annie and Jonah.
The movie reminds me of a few other films yet Hanks and Ryan are charming and The Kid also helps out the movie go forward / I also believe that Hanks other films success kind of help / Hurt this one in away - I mean Im not comparing it to his other roles but this one seems specifically about love - and I would say its like 70 % romantic and 30 % comedy but again I liked the movie for what it set up and Tom / Meg and the kid did a good job in this film - also a little note I feel that Rob Reiner and Rosie O' Donnell were just alright in there supporting roles but in my opinion they would be under minor roles for this movie.
There are many women who fall in love with him because of that story including this one girl from Baltimore who wants to meet him.Tom Hanks is another reason why I watched this.
It's based on a story by Jeff Arch and it stars Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin and Meg Ryan as Annie Reed.
She works well with her actors, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Ross Malinger, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Pullman and the rest.
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan truly bring these characters to life in their second movie together.
Tom Hanks is as good as ever and with Meg he's even better, and they are just perfect.Please watch this film, but don't waste all the time by looking for flaws.
(Not quite as often as its predecessor An Affair to Remember which is my all time favorite movie.) Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have great chemistry.