Sam has, but the cinematic notion that it’s a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence has impacted his grieving period. Annie hasn’t known the overwhelming nature of true love - at least not in the way it has been depicted on screen for years (and certainly not with Walter). Sleepless in Seattle’s brilliance comes from its commentary on how cinema plays a role in shaping our ideals, goals, and decisions. (Her best friend Becky, played by Rosie O’Donnell, responds to her melodramatic plot: “That’s your problem! You don’t want to be in love. After hearing Sam’s appearance on a call-in radio show in which he shares the difficulty of getting over his wife’s death, she (as well as thousands of other women in America) makes a move: she sends him a letter, which is intercepted by his son, Jonah, in which she proposes they meet on the top of the Empire State Building in a recreation of the classic scene in An Affair to Remember. Of course, the meta nature of Sleepless in Seattle is what forces Annie to embark on a philosophical journey of sorts to find out whether attraction is something otherworldly after all. ![]() At the same time, she refuses the sentiments of fate and soul mates, saying, “Destiny is something we’ve invented because we can’t stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental.” Meanwhile, it’s Sam, grieving over the loss of his deceased wife, who emotionally professes his belief that their attraction was magic. Take, for example, Meg Ryan’s Annie’s engagement to the perpetually dull and awkward Walter (played by Bill Pullman) she’s uncertain about their future, worried that their relationship is one of convenience rather than the result of passion. There is typical commentary about gender - An Affair to Remember is a running gag, with Tom Hanks’ Sam character calling it “a chick movie” - but there’s also the subtle deviations from the usual gender depictions. The film harkens back to the simple romances of Old Hollywood, and avoids any of the vulgarities and complications of recent submissions to the romantic comedy genre. The center of the film isn’t the couple’s chemistry rather, it’s Ephron’s sensibility at building the romance by calling out the cinematic joys that predated her own films, particularly the sobfest An Affair to Remember, which makes at least four female characters weep throughout the course of the movie. They are in just two brief scenes together, which allows for Ephron to take this movie all on her own. What sets Sleepless in Seattle apart immediately is that its romantic leads, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan - who became synonymous with romantic-comedy coupledom, despite only starring together two other times (in John Patrick Shanley’s Joe Versus the Volcano and Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail) - hardly share any screen time. Two decades later, Sleepless in Seattle still stands as a cinematic achievement and perhaps the last great American romantic comedy. ![]() Ward and Jeff Arch) for Best Original Screenplay. It wasn’t just a commercial success, as she received an Academy Award nomination (shared with her co-writers, David S. Sleepless in Seattle, released in June 1993, proved to be Ephron’s biggest hit. It was her second feature, however, that solidified her cinematic eye as well as her ear for sharp dialogue. After writing scripts for well-received films like Silkwood, Heartburn, and When Harry Met Sally…, she stepped behind the lens for her directorial debut, the little-seen and mostly forgotten This Is My Life. It’s been over two decades since Nora Ephron made the move from screenwriter to film director, the third of her creative roles (she began her career as a journalist).
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