Review

Sleepless in Seattle

Released: 1993
Director: Nora Ephron
Starring: Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks

Grade: B

How do you write a romantic comedy in which the central couple don’t meet until the last five minutes of the movie? The answer is, you don’t. Nora Ephron’s 1993 Sleepless in Seattle isn’t really a romantic comedy so much as it’s a love letter to the rom com genre.

There’s a voyeuristic thread that runs through Sleepless in Seattle. Annie (Meg Ryan) becomes infatuated with Sam (Tom Hanks) after hearing him wax poetically on the radio about his recently deceased wife. Annie and Sam are two people on opposite sides of the country who are sleepwalking through life. Sam is trying his best to raise his eight-year-old son and get through each day without his wife at his side. Annie is trying to pretend that her engagement to milquetoast Walter (Bill Pullman) isn’t lacking in romance. Their wake-up call comes in the form of a call-in radio program. Sam verbalizes, perhaps for the first time, how truly difficult it is for him to survive without his wife. Annie, alone in her car, hears Sam talk about a kind of love she’s never really known with Walter. 

Sleepless in Seattle is oddly structured. For most of the film we’re watching Meg Ryan stalk Tom Hanks as he goes about living his life mostly unaware of her. Her storyline is entirely dependent on him, while his storyline centers around his son. From a narrative point of view, it makes the movie feels slightly unbalanced. From an allegorical point of view, it makes perfect sense. I see Annie not so much as a character, but as the personification of the rom com audience. She becomes invested in a stranger, just as the rom com audience becomes invested in fictional characters. She’s smart enough to recognize that the radio host is manipulating Sam to get a poignant sound bite (just as the rom com audience might recognize the manipulative tricks of a movie), but she gets sucked in any way. Annie goes so far as to hire a Private Investigator to learn more about Sam, and at one point she flies out to Seattle in hopes of meeting him. It sounds a bit crazy, but how many of us have looked into interviews and paparazzi photos of our favorite actors, yearning to learn a little more about the people we are love onscreen? It’s certainly not the same thing as stalking someone in real life (hopefully no one has done that to their favorite actor), but Annie’s character isn’t necessarily meant to be realistic. She’s a stand in for the viewers who love the magic of a good story. Only in her case, her story is flesh and blood, not celluloid.

In another ode to the rom com genre, writer/director Nora Ephron conceives of her film as an homage to the 1957 classic romantic melodrama, An Affair to Remember. Thanks to a dad who instilled me with a solid education in classic films, I’m familiar with An Affair to Remember, but you don’t really need to know the specifics of that film to get Ephron’s point. People love movies and conceptualize their real lives based around fictional ones. As Rosie O’Donnell’s character points out to Annie, “You want to be in love in a movie. You don’t want to be in love.” Annie asks Sam to meet her on top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day, just as Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr agree to do in An Affair to Remember. Fiction becomes reality to characters in a fictional world. It’s all a bit meta, but it works because the desire to make real life like something in a movie is so universal. In the ultimate bit of meta commentary, Annie laments,  “Men just don’t understand this movie,” as she sobs her way through the umpteenth viewing of An Affair to Remember. It’s a statement that could be applied to most Nora Ephron movies and most rom coms in general.


I’ve written about Nora Ephron’s work before in my review of When Harry Met Sally, one of her early screenplays. Sleepless in Seattle marks Ephron’s directorial debut and she rises to the challenge with a nice sense of style that enhances rather than overwhelms the story she’s telling. Although they remain physically separated for most of the movie, Ephron links Sam and Annie visually through parallel shots of their lives. Ephron also creates a unique visual landscape for each of the cities featured in the film- Chicago, Baltimore, Seattle, and New York. There’s a particularly beautiful aerial shot of Sam and his son Jonah standing in a graveyard that moves to reveal the Chicago skyline behind them. Smart use of location shots help ground the movie in the reality of our world and captures some of the magical rhythm of city living.

In general, early Nora Ephron movies have a lovely, lived-in quality that feels very different than the overproduced, polished rom coms of today. There’s a lot of attention to detail- Jonah sleeps in a University of Chicago shirt because they recently moved from Chicago, Annie puts sweet & low in her lemonade. These things don’t advance the plot or have any thematic importance, they just make the world feel more real. Most modern rom com heroines are styled like department store mannequins, but Annie is kind of unstylish- all messy hair and too many bags to carry. I could imagine a modern day rom com having a makeover scene, but here it’s not some fatal flaw Annie has to overcome, it’s just part of who she is.

One of the reasons Ephron gets away with keeping the lovers apart for so long is that the film's heart is paternal, not romantic. What I found myself caring most about was the story of a single dad trying to raise his son. The casting director did an amazing job in finding Ross Malinger, a child actor who manages to pull off a precocious character without becoming annoying. He’s got fantastic chemistry with Hanks and their relationship is probably one of the best father/son dynamics presented on film. (It’s also strikingly similar to the relationship between Liam Neeson and Thomas Sansgter in Love Actually, which I must assume was inspired by this film.)

Sleepless in Seattle isn’t a perfect movie. It’s a little too long and a little too slow. For a classic rom com, it’s surprisingly lacking in romance. But for all its faults, it has personality. Unlike the bland, mass produced rom coms of today, Sleepless in Seattle feels like a labor of love. The actors treat their characters with respect, never going for a cheap laugh at the expense of their humanity. And while Ephron inserts a bit of self-referential mocking, she clearly loves and respects the rom com genre. More importantly she loves and respects the rom com audience.

Ephron leaves the movie open-ended. Annie and Sam finally meet atop the Empire State Building and hold hands as they ride the elevator back down. That’s it. There’s no kiss, no “one year later” scene at their wedding. The movie essentially ends with a beginning, with two people who have woken up from their complacency and are now starting on a new, unknown path. We don’t know if they’ll live happily ever after, but we know they’re both willing to try. It’s that blend of sentimentality and realism that keeps Nora Ephron’s film feeling fresh two decades later. 

Reality factor: Sleepless in Seattle is a surprisingly realistic rom com, mostly because the romance is kept to a bare minimum and friendships drive the film. Jonah’s impromptu solo trip to New York is the only thing that raises this movie’s fantasy-levels. [4 out of 5] 

Eye-candy factor: Nora Ephron seems to favor nerdy leading men rather than dashing ones. It’s okay though, I’d take a man with a heart of gold over one with abs of steel any day. (Fun fact, I once sat behind Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson at a play and it was the best two hours of my life.) [2 out of 5] 

Aww factor: I really can’t overemphasize how great the father/son dynamic is in this movie. The lovely scene in which Sam comforts his son after a nightmare is topped only by their heartfelt reunion on top of the Empire State Building. [5 out of 5]

Review

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

Released: 1994
Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Andie MacDowell & Hugh Grant

Grade: B+
  

How much you enjoy Four Weddings and a Funeral probably depends upon how much realism you expect from your romantic comedies. It might seem naive to expect rom coms to have more than the barest resemblance to reality, after all they pretty much exist to create a fantasy world where the audience can live vicariously through the characters’ happy endings. Rom coms are notorious for their fairy tale endings, whirlwind romances and love-at-first-sight-contrivances. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair to the genre. Sure some (I’d even say most) rom coms sacrifice realism for romance, but the best examples of the genre are able to develop a romance that still feels rooted in reality. In these reviews alone I’ve praised When Harry Meet Sally, 500 Days of Summer, and even Definitely, Maybe for creating central romances that are both satisfyingly romantic and still believable. Sadly, Four Weddings does not fall into that category. It's central romance is pure underdeveloped, fluff.

There isn’t much of a point to trying to recount the plot of Four Weddings and a Funeral  because this film is more of a character piece than anything else. The most interesting dramatic tension comes from the film’s title. We know there are going to be four weddings and a funeral because that’s what the film is called. This gives some sense of rising action to the movie (there’s only one wedding left!), but I wonder what it would be like to watch this film without knowing what it was called. Would it feel more plodding? More aimless? Thankfully, we don’t have to concern ourselves with such concerns because the film’s title is part of its charm. Audiences agreed and in 1994 this movie became the highest grossing British film to date, making over $245 million. It was also nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, pretty high praise for an unassuming romantic comedy.

The romance in Four Weddings comes secondary to the friendship of a ragtag bunch of weirdos. (It’s like Friends except everyone is Phoebe). At the center of the group is Charles (Hugh Grant), an awkward cad who is both charming and insecure. Scarlet (Charlotte Coleman) is Charles’ roommate, a flaming redhead with disarming honesty. The group’s heart belongs to sensible Matthew (John Hannah) and his boisterous lover Gareth (Simon Callow). Rounding out the company is icily sarcastic Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas), her awkward, aristocratic brother Tom (James Fleet) and Charles’ optimistic, deaf brother David (David Bower). There’s something slightly morose about each of these friends. It’s like they escaped from a Tim Burton movie and wound up in a quirky British romance, but are determined to make the best of it.

Despite the fact that they don't get a ton of individual screen time, there’s a sense that these characters exist when we’re not seeing them. I realize that sounds a little ridiculous, as they obviously don’t exist when we’re not seeing them, but they feel like real human beings, not stock characters thrown on screen for laughs. The group dynamic makes perfect sense; although they don’t fit with the rest of the world, they fit with each other. When one member of the group dies (I don’t think that’s too much of a spoiler given the film’s title), the loss is palpable. Kristen Scott Thomas and John Hannah (aka that guy from The Mummy) are particular standouts amongst a stellar cast. Thomas displays just the right amount of vulnerability behind her icy exterior and Hannah delivers a dozy of a eulogy that’s heartbreaking, but not mawkish.

Compared to the thespian-glory of her costars, Andie MacDowell looks sadly miscast as Charles’ American love interest, Carrie. She’s not particularly alluring, intelligent or funny. The role itself is fairly underwritten, but I can’t help feeling like a more capable actress could have given Carrie a little more spark. In my mind it’s England: 7, America: zip. In fact, let’s make it England: 17 because Hugh Grant gives a performance worth 10 points.

By 2012 Hugh Grant has long become a caricature of himself. He’s moved from actor to persona and I imagine there are plenty of casting calls that go out looking for “a Hugh Grant type.” But in 1994 Hugh Grant was an unknown entity and Four Weddings and a Funeral was his breakout role. Before the prostitution scandal, before the ever-repetitive performances, before he was the king of rom coms, Hugh Grant was just a sort of nebbishy guy looking for love. Watching Four Weddings, it’s easy to see what launched Hugh Grant to superstardom. Charles is a completely self-conscious character, but there is not an ounce of self-consciousness in Grant’s performance. (He’s also got a brilliant comic timing. There’s a small bit near the beginning where Grant is banging his head against the wall in despair and suddenly turns to give a polite greeting as an old lady walks by. I don’t know if such a small bit of physical comedy has ever made me laugh so hard).

MacDowell has the challenge of making a bland character likeable, but Grant has an even greater challenge. Let’s face it, Charles is kind of a dick at the end of the movie. He decides to marry a former girlfriend even though he doesn’t really love her, and then he dumps the poor girl at the alter to run away with a woman he barely knows. It’s a tall order to make such a selfish character likeable, and Grant succeeds with flying colors. He single-handedly sells a dull romance through sheer force of will and a dash of charm. Not too bad for his first leading role.

So back to the question of whether or not realism matters in rom coms. To me, it doesn’t, at least to a point. What I mean is this: although Four Weddings has a pretty ridiculous central romance, I still enjoyed the movie immensely. That underdeveloped romance is really the only thing keeping me from giving this film an “A”. When you think about it, by the end of the movie Charles and Carrie could barely be classified as acquaintances. They met and sleep together at one wedding, at the next wedding she introduces him to her finance and then sleeps with Charles again, they go shopping one afternoon and he confesses his love, he attends her wedding, they met at a funeral, and she shows up single at his nuptials. Which means by the film’s climax they’ve known each other for a total of six days. And yet we’re supposed to believe that Charles is willing to call off his own wedding to be with her. It’s a pretty callous move on his part and to really buy into it Carrie has got to be the most enchanting woman in the world (she’s not) or the two have to have unbelievable chemistry (they don’t).

So the central romance is weak at best and disturbing at worst. And yet the rest of the movie is so utterly delightful that it almost doesn’t matter. MacDowell is a significant weak link as an actress and Carrie is a misstep as a character, but what’s really enchanting about this little British rom com is not the romantic relationship, but the familial relationship between a little band of weird misfits. And when you find yourself genuinely wanting to spend time with the characters onscreen, the film must be doing something right.

Reality factor: Am I the only one who wanted Charles to end up with Fiona, not Carrie? Her confession of love perfectly highlights the way Fiona uses a frosty facade to hide her real vulnerability. A pair of lifelong friends falling in love would make for a much more realistic story than a love-at-first-sight romance. [2 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: “Awkward”, “funny”, “insecure” and “British” are probably the four words I would use to describe my dream man.  [4 out of 5]

Aww factor: I’m a huge fan of stories that feature friends-as-family and I tend to find them more affecting than dramatic romances. The group’s shorthanded way of speaking and constant teasing feels true to life. And the line “All these years we've been single and proud of it and never noticed that two of us were, in effect, married all this time” is just a beautifully captured sentiment. 

[5 out of 5]

Review #4

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY...

Released:1989

Director: Rob Reiner

Starring: Meg Ryan & Billy Crystal

Grade: B+

 

One of my favorite icebreakers is to ask people to name a movie they are embarrassed they’ve never seen. My go to answer is Fight Club, but When Harry Met Sally was a close second. When I spotted it at my local library on Friday, I decided it might be time to finally cross it off the never-seen list.

I wasn’t totally ignorant of the movie’s plot. I’ve seen the infamous orgasm-diner scene on various countdown shows and I’ve caught a few minutes while flipping through channels on TV. I went in with mostly fresh eyes, however, curious to see if the film would live up to its beloved reputation. The central question of the film is whether or not men and women can be friends without sex getting in the way. My question was whether the film would feel like a timeless love story or a dated flashback.

The final verdict is a little bit of both. As I was watching, I kept comparing the film to more contemporary portrayals of men, women, friendship and love. How I Met Your Mother and Friends deal with similar issues in a more recent era (albeit in sitcom form). What struck me is how much older the characters in When Harry Met Sally seem. Maybe it’s just the big hair and high-waisted jeans, but Harry, Sally and their friends seem to have a certain air of maturity that similarly aged characters on more modern shows don’t. It’s interesting to see how the world has changed in the past twenty years and how we portray people in their post-college, pre-marriage years. For all of their relationship dramas, Harry and Sally are depicted as fully-fledged adults with stable jobs and fantastic apartments. I feel like Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Ted, Robin and Marshall have a stronger connection to their youth, a sort of arrested-development made fashionable most recently by Judd Apatow.

After two random-meetings, Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) finally become friends as they recover from rough breakups. There’s a real sense of two lonely people finding each other at the right time. Theirs is a friendship based on mutual-vulnerability tinged with nostalgia. Having been hurt by love, it’s understandable that Harry and Sally are looking for something else: a relationship without the risk of a breakup, someone you can call up in the middle of the night just to watch the last five minutes of Casablanca together. (On a side note, I love when people in movies talk about other movies. A lot of my friendships are based on our shared love of pop culture topics and it’s nice to see that represented on film.)

Ryan and Crystal have an easy sort of camaraderie and you get the feeling they had a great time goofing off between takes. I give Rob Reiner credit for creating a relaxed set, something that seems to be a signature of his films. (Wouldn’t you have loved to hang out on the set on The Princess Bride?) Even though Harry claims to have a dark side, the movie keeps the conflict light and the emotional turmoil fairly mellow. It’s almost too determined to keep things happy and frothy, and I wish the stakes felt a little higher. Harry and Sally's one big yelling match ends with an apology almost before it really begins.

Meg Ryan is charming in a wide-eyed kind of way. Sally has to be high-maintenance but still likable, and Ryan does a good job of toeing the line between endearing and annoying. Billy Crystal has a wonderful dry wit and easy charm that works well against Ryan’s buzzing energy.

It’s a slow, easy movie about anxious people with relatively trivial problems and I think there are two reasons it’s remembered so fondly. The first is the soundtrack. This was probably the biggest surprise to me as a first time viewer. The soundtrack is composed entirely of big band standards crooned by Harry Connick Jr. The use of these timeless songs was a brilliantly far-thinking choice that saves the movie from feeling too dated. Even if the shoulder pads ground the characters firmly in the late 1980s, the music connects Harry and Sally’s love story to something more classic. “It Had To Be You” is the thread that connects this one particular romance to romance in general, and it helps tie together the central plot with the interspersed interviews of other couples. The scope of the film is simultaneously small and large. Harry and Sally are just one couple with a love story in a world full of couples with love stories. The music gives a universal, ageless quality to the film.

The other reason I think the movie is remembered so fondly is because it really sticks the landing. I was taken aback by how much the last scene hit me in the gut. A playwriting teacher told me that in order to make something relatable, it needs to be specific. It’s a lesson Nora Ephron clearly took to heart in Harry’s final speech. It’s the details of getting cold when it’s 71 degrees and that little crinkle above her nose that makes their relationship feel real. It’s also a huge credit to Billy Crystal that he’s able to deliver a line like “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible” with just the right amount of edge to keep it from becoming pure schmaltz.

Reality factor: The movie takes it’s time (twelve years and three months) to build Harry and Sally’s relationship and it’s stronger for it. The specifics of each character feel real- maybe that’s because Harry was influenced by Rob Reiner and Sally by Nora Ephron (who orders in the same way Sally does). [4 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: Bruno Kirby (as Carrie Fisher’s love interest) is no Han Solo. Billy Crystal has a nice smile, but thank goodness he’s funny.  [1 out of 5]

Aww factor: Never have neuroses been so charming. Major credit to everyone involved for making a New-Years-Eve-love-confession feel earned and genuine.
[3 out of 5]