RELEASED: 1993, Cert. PG

RUNNING TIME: Approx. 105 mins

DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY: Nora Ephron

PRODUCER: Gary Foster

MUSIC: Marc Shaiman

MAIN CAST:-

Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin
Meg Ryan as Annie Reed
Ross Malinger as Jonah Baldwin
Bill Pullman as Walter

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FILM ONLY REVIEW

Sam is sad and lonely after the death of his wife and has spent months in grief, throwing all his energies into looking after Jonah, his little son.

Wanting his dad to be happy again, Jonah one night calls a phone-in programme on a radio station, asking for advice from the DJ as to how he can find him a new wife. Bullied into doing so by Jonah, Sam reluctantly speaks to the DJ and as a result, is the recipient over the next few weeks of mountains of fan mail from lonely women - none of which interest him in the slightest.

Annie is engaged to multi-allergy sufferer Walter, and the wedding is very imminent. After having listened to late night radio and hearing both Jonah and Sam speak on air, Annie is touched by their plight to the point where she wants to meet up with Sam and hovers between trying to arrange a 'chance' encounter and trying to erase him from her mind by concentrating on her forthcoming wedding with Walter.

That very loosely sets the scene....give it a watch to find out what happens!

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Although I clearly recall an occasion when I watched Sleepless In Seattle on cable TV a lot of years ago, I remembered little or nothing about it until my recent viewing. The fact that the contents of the film had somehow become erased from my memory made me a little wary, thinking that if it was so good, why couldn't I remember anything about it?

Sleepless In Seattle is a light-hearted romance which although the very beginning (Sam's wife's funeral) is totally serious, the remainder is done in rom-com style. As I was watching recently, pieces of the film unearthed themselves from the dormant part of my memory, and I was then able to recall that in the mid-1990s when I first saw it, I had sort of hallmarked it as a springboard that a whole catalogue of - in my opinion - dire films catapulted into the arena from.

For me, Sleepless In Seattle is quite a watchable film, although I am not overly impressed by the acting from any of the cast members. I do find Meg Ryan quite irritating at the best of times, although in this film she is tolerable, and Tom Hanks has a bundle of performances under his belt which are far superior to this one, where he plays the character of bereaved dad Sam. I think overall my favourite character is the kindly but annoying Walter, who early on in the film makes it very clear that he is allergic to bees...amongst most other things. I feel Bill Pullman injected enough humour into his role to compensate for the lack of material in the remainder of the film which is capable of stimulating my sense of mirth. I'm not saying it isn't a funny film....just that this particular brand of humour doesn't really appeal to me.

There is a mood present in Sleepless In Seattle which I'm not really comfortable with, yet it is very difficult to describe what I mean. I think it could be that I find it perhaps a bit too neat, twee and on the surface. When it comes to romance, even if it is a comedy, I prefer a greater degree of depth. As a whole, I think what probably saves the day with this film is the way it is put together; in that sense, it is quite well done, but not enough to really tug at my heart strings or impress me to the point where I wander around open-mouthed in awe for the next few days.

I am in two minds about the music, some of which I find quite pleasant, and some I find fairly boring. Instead of taking standard, classic songs and having cover versions of them performed for the purpose of the soundtrack, I'd always prefer to hear something original, say if the production/direction team had paid a musician to write something solely for the film itself.

Despite me not being the world's greatest fan of Sleepless In Seattle, I will say that it is quite watchable and I don't have a complete downer on it, and would say that it scores quite a bit lower on the yawn factor than many later films in this genre manage to grimly achieve. It is the sort of movie I feel is probably best viewed when something light and undemanding is required, say after a huge, mountainous Christmas dinner when all you want to do is flop out in front of the TV and not have to concentrate particularly hard....on that sort of occasion, it is something I'd welcome and would probably enjoy a lot more. I suppose overall it is quite a sweet storyline, but my appreciation levels of the film would rise quite sharply if the humour contained within matched my own sense of. Also, and as a final observation, it is my view that this could probably, or even definitely, be one for the girls?

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At the time of writing, Sleepless In Seattle can be purchased from Amazon as follows:-

New: from £2.97 to £16.89
Used: from £1.41 to £7.92
Collectible: One copy currently available @ £4.98

A delivery charge of £1.26 should be added to the above figures.

Thanks for reading!

~~ Also published on Ciao under my CelticSoulSister user name ~~