Maybe this is perhaps showing a little romcom fatigue on my part, but my first thought when the opening of Sleepless in Seattle began to play was: “Wow, do I love that this isn’t set in New York.” Which of course, is completely false, as if you’ve seen this movie at all, you know that literally the most famous scene takes place on perhaps the most famous NY landmark: the Empire State Building. And, of course, it’s another Nora Ephron classic, so New York is a given element. As a romcom, I think Sleepless in Seattle presents a self-awareness that is really interesting to dig into. After all, the main character’s friend even challenges her: “you don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie.”

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With its acknowledgement of the rosy nature of the romcom and the, of course, occasionally problematic use of tropes, I would consider Sleepless in Seattle a classic romcom, although admittedly it is light on the com by today’s standards. I watched this movie with my roommate and at one point we were both in genuine tears for Sam. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at another classic paring of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

 

In case you’re like me and haven’t seen this movie in years (and, to be honest, get it confused with the other “sleeping” movie that also has Bill Pullman in it: While You Were Sleeping), here’s the premise: Sam (Tom Hanks) is a sad sad architect in Chicago after his wife’s death. He decides he and his incredibly annoying (sorry) son Jonah need a change of scenery, so the two move to Seattle and take up residence on an inexplicably nice houseboat? On Christmas eve, Jonah calls into a radio station in Chicago and tell listeners that his sad dad needs a new wife. Who should hear but Annie (Meg Ryan), driving in a car on Christmas eve, and she’s unbelievably moved by hearing from both Jonah and Sam.

 

Annie, like many other romcom heroines before her, is a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. At the start of the film, she’s engaged to Walter (Pullman), who quickly attains disposable fiancee status because he… has allergies? I’m really struggling to figure out what’s so terrible about Walter. Which, I’m realizing, is maybe the point. He’s perfectly bland. These two got together after meeting at work, as he’s an associate publisher at the Baltimore Sun where she also works. He’s technically not her boss, but still much higher up in the power structure than her, but the film doesn’t really pause on that at all. Walter is nice but a bit boring, I guess, so when Annie hears Tom Hanks say super sweet things about his dead wife on the radio, it’s all over for Walter. Sorry, my dude. Annie becomes, frankly, a little obsessed with this man that she has only heard on the radio, and her growing love for Tom Hanks begins to creep into every area of her life, including her job.

 

There’s only a few scenes of Annie actually at work, and each one of them is really only there to deepen her growing Sam obsession. While I can acknowledge that there’s only a certain amount of time in a romcom to establish the romantic relationship, and this one gets tricky because (spoiler) the two leads don’t actually speak until the final scene, I’m still a little disappointed that Annie’s job really only exists to provide her means and access to Sam. The fact that Annie is a journalist doesn’t build her character for the audience or provide any insight into what she is like outside of this romance. It is just the vehicle through which she can access Sam.

 

She does have one friend at work, Becky, who is maybe also her editor, which creates an interesting dynamic there — as her boss, Becky would have every right to tell Annie to get back to work (print is dying people, put some work into it!), but because Becky exists to be Annie’s friend, she enables the HELL out of Annie crushing on Sam. When she goes on and on about how moving Sam was on the show, Beck outright says: “you should write about this.” Well, as we later learn, Annie “writing” about this is a pretense to lie to her fiance, stalk Sam in Seattle, and just generally do everything but actually write about this story. Also, I’m sorry, in what universe would this be something that the Baltimore Sun would write about, seemingly weeks after Jonah called in at Christmas? It’s not exactly of local interest, even if Sam has apparently become nationally famous.

 

The film just drops this idea of writing a story about Sam to give Annie permission to obsess over him at work, maybe doing a disservice to establishing Annie as a fully-fleshed out character. Her work is, in a sense, pretty trivialized — like many working women in a romcom, Annie’s job seems to only exist when the film decides it needs to in order for the romance to blossom. When her job isn’t relevant to the romance, all traces of her working seem to disappear from the plot. It’s restraining women by confining them to such a romance-driven relationship with their workplaces, and although Sleepless in Seattle isn’t the worst offender of this, I’m still not about how this goes down with Annie.

 

Something I found in Sleepless in Seattle that seemed to echo so many other films in the romcom realm was the fact that both Annie and Sam seem to have only coworkers as their close friends. This isn’t new — even in their other classic film together (You’ve Got Mail), Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan also seem to only have friends that are also coworkers. In this film, Annie’s friend Becky at work seems to be her only friend, and Sam is frequently seen hanging out with Rob Reiner, who works with him or for him, the film doesn’t specify. Is this a common romcom trope? Totally. It’s easier for a film focused on building romantic tension to consolidate all the personal character interactions into just one friend/coworker. In doing this, though, I think the films like this miss out on the rich network of other people that can populate the life of a character. Yes, you can totally be friends with your coworkers, but the fact that Annie calls Becky in the middle of the night and they hang out and watch movies together is a little unrealistic for an editor/reporter relationship.

 

Becky and Annie’s relationship is even more complicated in light of Annie’s feelings for Sam. At one point, Annie writes a letter to Sam and Jonah (Sleepless and Son), telling them to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day, but them seemingly rips it off the typewriter not to be mailed. Apparently, although we see if off screen, Becky is the one that mails the letter, which prompts Jonah to become obsessed with Annie and fly to New York to meet her alone. While it seems to work out in the end, Becky mailing this letter, both as her friend and as her boss, is a little weird, right? Although I guess you could argue that Becky is trying to push Annie to pursue this relationship out of a love for her friend, she also continues to enable Annie at work to use her job to get close to Sam. The film doesn’t dwell on the ethical implications of Becky’s or Annie’s actions, but I sure will.

 

Throughout the film, Annie straight up abuses her job as a reporter and the resources it affords her to further a relationship with Sam that, for the majority of the film, is hella one sided. It’s another example of the unethical female journalist trope, but also that of something a little weirder, the “stalking as love” trope. When Annie is at work and thinking about how dreamy and sensitive Sam is, she begins to try and find his contact information. She calls the original radio station and other Chicago sources, basically lying to try and get his address or phone number. She says, “I’m doing an article on call-in radio shows,” or “I’m writing a story about how people handle bereavement,” but she’s definitely not doing either of those things.

 

She uses some very 90s-looking tech to search the Sun’s database for Sam, eventually finding him. This sequence gets some very cute romcom music in the background, but I can’t ignore how unethical and creepy this is. She gets Sam’s information from a background check that includes photos and addresses. She also seemingly uses the Sun’s resources to hire a private detective to take pictures of Sam while he happens to be on a date with another woman, pretending he’s important to a story. As I was watching, I couldn’t help but think how differently her actions would come off if she were a man. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of the “switch the gender and see how it plays” style of critique, but I can’t shake the feeling that if Annie were a male journalist doing this, we would find it off-putting rather than romantic.

 

Also, I just keep wondering how this conversation goes once they get together? “Yeah, I stalked you using my journalist resources and I flew across the country pretending I was doing a story but instead I just stared at you and now we’re together?” Also, what do they tell people who ask them how they met? The movie wants us to ignore these things because she’s Meg Ryan and she’s adorable and she could do no wrong, but it’s heavily implied she uses work funds to go on a trip to Seattle to follow Sam and Jonah and then stare at them from across the road. Even if she were actually doing a story on them and not just seeking him for romantic reasons, this would be a weird way to interact with sources.

 

Of course, in the end, all romcom roads lead back to New York. And of course, it’s Valentine’s Day. Annie is there with Walter, registering for wedding china, after convincing herself that the woman she saw Sam with was his girlfriend, not just a friend. Like her letter proposed, Jonah is waiting for her at the top of the Empire State Building after having somehow flown across the country as a literal child alone. Annie dumps Walter in maybe the second-most civil breakup I’ve ever seen in romcom (Meg Ryan and Greg Kinnear in You’ve Got Mail being the first) and realizes she can’t miss her chance to be with Sam. Hijinks ensue and the three of them find themselves on the observation deck, An Affair to Remember-style. Despite all of it, seeing these two together makes my heart happy.

 

Is this, I wonder a triumph of the film, that even though Meg Ryan does some genuinely questionable things in regards to her job, we still love her and wish her happiness? Or, is it because the romance in romcom land triumphs over everything else, even ethics? After all, if she’d cared about behaving like an ethical journalist, the plot of this movie wouldn’t have happened. Or she’d at least have written the article about Sam. Yes, the film does not indicate anything about what will happen with her workplace. Is she going to move to Seattle? What about her job in Baltimore? I guess it doesn’t matter. But does it? In the end, the romance in this movie is furthered by a woman using workplace resources to track down a man she’s never met. Maybe it’s an indication of the power of the genre that seeing Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan hold hands (finally!) at the end makes me not even care.

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P.S. Cut together as a horror movie, this film is incredible.