Saturday, December 25, 2021

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Pleasant Rom-com starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Plot? A recently widowed man pours out  his grief on National Radio causing a woman to fall in love with him.

Its the type of movie where everyone is comfortably well-to-do and no one worries about money or work. The houses are well furnished, the restaurants upscale, the kids smart/cute, and the dinner parties cozy. Tom and Meg have supportive friends, who are willing to move out of the way if needed.  To provide us with some connection, the characters constantly reference old movies (Dirty Dozen, Casablanca, An affair to remember, fatal Attraction, etc.) and the soundtrack blasts out the old classics with Louie Armstrong, Durante, Celine Dion, Ray Charles and Nat King*.

Typical Quote:
Tom Hanks: Jonah, listen to me. You don't know Victoria. I hardly know her myself. She is a fat mystery to me. She tosses her hair a lot. Why does she do this? I have no idea. Is it a twitch? Does she need a haircut? Should she use a barrette to keep her hair out of her face? These are things I'm willing to get to the bottom of. And that is why... I am DATING her. That's all I'm doing. I'm not living with her. I'm not marrying her. Can you appreciate the difference? This is what single people do. They try other people on and see how they fit. But everybody's an adjustment. Nobody's perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect...

Summary Basically, a derivative entertainment product, with two likable leads, designed to make people feel good. Not really my kind of movie - very predictable - but it was OK. The only downside is the presence of Awful, unfunny Rosie O'Donnell. ** 1/2

Notes

* =  While almost all the singers are black, the songs are standards from the 1950s or before.  Somewhere over the Rainbow,  When I fall in love, Stardust,  Makin Whoopee,  A Kiss to build a Dream on, and An Affair to Remember.  Strangely,  for "As time goes by" Dooley Wilson is dropped in favor of Jimmy Durante. Like Warren Beatty's Love Affair,  you wonder if the soundtrack was "blackened up" to make up for there being almost no black characters. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.