Thursday, March 17, 2011

Sleepless in Seattle

Tom Hanks is a widower, an architect living in Seattle. Meg Ryan is a reporter living in Baltimore. Will they meet at the top of the Empire State Building? Also starring Bill Pullman and Rob Reiner, cinematography by Sven Nykvist, directed by Nora Ephron.

I can't help it, I like this film. Hanks is not the hippest actor in the world, he does safe Hollywood movies, he doesn't play heroin addicted serial killers. But neither did James Stewart. I think this is maybe Hanks' best performance, not that I've seen all his films, and Meg Ryan is... well, Meg Ryan, I guess. Bill Pullman is funny in the Ralph Bellamy part. Actually, the film has the class of an old 40s film. Since Hanks and Ryan only meet at the end of the film, Hanks' partner in this film is rather the son, and they found a good, natural acting kid for the role, not one of those child actor horrors. The scene of Hanks talking about his dead wife is quite touching. The scene of Hanks and Reiner talking about Cary Grant is very funny. If you think about the story of the film too much it kind of falls apart, but I always enjoy watching it. It's not easy to make this kind of film. They tried again later with You Got Mail, and it didn't work.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, its a cute movie of the variety that is engineered to not be hated to much but not be loved to strongly either. I can't imagine this is anyones favorite movie, but I'm sure it it. And those people really don't pay that much attention to movies. That being said, I agree with you about Hanks. he's a likable guy, a thats pretty much what he brings to the screen: Transferring his natural likability to the character he's portraying and peppering his performance with his sort of "Dad humor" (that is he's funny in a way your friends funny dad might be).
    However, I do find the scene where the kid says: "I'm starting to forget her." and Hanks tells him about his mother to be quit good and as moving as this film cares to get. For the record I also like Splash, The Money Pit and Forrest Gump. I hated the Ladykillers.

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  2. Yes, Forrest Gump is a good film. It's a tearjerker, but there is nothing wrong with that. Big is pretty good as well. Haven't seen The Ladykillers.

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