Line #15 Film/SleeplessInSeattle


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6	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sleepless_in_seattle_poster.jpg]]
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8	->'''Annie''': ''[watching ''Film/AnAffairToRemember'']'' Now that was when people ''knew'' how to be in love. They knew it! Time, distance... nothing could separate them because they knew. It was right. It was real. It was...\
9	'''Becky''': A movie! That's your problem! You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie.
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11	A 1993 SleeperHit[[labelnote:*]][[{{Pun}} We know]]: [[{{Rimshot}} Ba-dum tsshh]]![[/labelnote]] which infused a fluffy RomanticComedy with a degree of PostModernism. As director/co-writer Creator/NoraEphron put it, "Our dream was to make a movie about how movies screw up your brain about love and then if we did a good job, [[StartXToStopX we would become one of the movies that screwed up people's brains about love forever]]." The film stars Creator/TomHanks and Creator/MegRyan, in their second screen pairing (preceded by ''Film/JoeVersusTheVolcano'' and followed by ''Film/YouveGotMail'').
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13	Hanks is Sam Baldwin, a recently-widowed architect from Chicago who's trying to start life anew in Seattle with his eight-year-old son Jonah (Ross Malinger). Jonah's idea for helping his father find a new wife involves calling a radio talk show on Christmas Eve and putting Sam on the air. Annie Reed (Ryan), a Baltimore news reporter who's engaged to the pleasant-but-bland Walter (Bill Pullman), happens to tune in to the show and falls in love with Sam. Sam and Annie then spend the rest of the movie trying to find reasons not to meet. You can guess what happens at the end.
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15	----
16	!!This film provides examples of:
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18	* AdorablyPrecociousChild: Jonah is absolutely adorable, and way too smart for his age.
19	* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: DREAMS COME TRUE's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAH_9Fu44q4 "Winter Song"]] is the theme song for the movie in Japan, although the lyrics are in English.
20	* AnnoyingLaugh / TheHyena: That horrendously annoying woman Sam dates. Jonah even says she sounds like a hyena.
21	* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Annie manages to follow Sam and Jonah from Lake Union to Alki Beach despite them being in a boat while she's in a car. This either requires Annie managing to guess where Sam and Jonah are headed and drive at improbable speeds, or have an amphibious rental car.
22	* BagsOfLetters: After announcing how hard it is dealing with the death of his wife, Sam receives thousands of letters from around the country and one of them is from the girl who he will eventually fall in love with.
23	* BigWhat: Spoken by Jessica's mother when she and Sam ask Jessica where Jonah went and she says, "He's on his way to New York".
24	* BlindDate: Has a montage of blind dates Sam endures.
25	* {{Bookends}}: The movie starts with Sam burying his wife and ends with him meeting the woman who will likely be his second.
26	* BoyMeetsGirl: Sam and Annie are perfect for each other -- but they've never met. The entire movie is about them ''not'' finding each other. They don't meet until the very end, when boy finally meets girl, ''after'' the girl believes she has lost him.
27	* BrattyHalfPint: Yeah, Jessica's mom needs to have a talk with her about nearly every civility you can name. She rivals Nick Sitcom brats for pushiness.
28	* CreatorCameo: When Annie is in the kitchen in the middle of the night listening to the 'best of' radio callers, the caller 'Disappointed in Denver' is voiced by director Creator/NoraEphron.
29	%%* DeadpanSnarker: Sam
30	* DeadPersonConversation: Maggie appears to Sam on New Year's Eve to share a drink with him.
31	* DisposableFiance: Walter, possibly the most disposable of all disposable fiancés.
32	* DistantPrologue: The opening scenes establish the death of Sam's wife and his decision to move to Seattle. After the intro, the time stamp informs the viewer that it's 18 months later.
33	* DoorClosesEnding: After Annie, Sam, and Jonah get on the elevator, the doors close and we cut to the outside of the Empire State Building.
34	%%* FatBestFriend: Becky to Annie
35	%%* FunctionalGenreSavvy: Annie, played with and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]].
36	%%* FunWithAcronyms: Jessica and Jonah engage in this.
37	%%* TheGhost: Becky's boyfriend Rick.
38	* HappilyMarried: All dialogue makes it obvious that Sam and his wife were this.
39	* HeldGaze: The Anniversary Edition [=DVD=] cover shows Creator/TomHanks and Creator/MegRyan looking into each other's eyes like this because it is the quintessential "romantic" pose.
40	* HereditaryWeddingDress: After Annie announces her engagement, her mother takes her to the attic so that she can try on her grandmother's wedding dress. It's ill-fitting and out of style.
41	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: When Annie comes clean to Walter, he is understanding and mentions that their relationship wouldn't be fair if she doesn't feel that he is the right person. He says this despite the fact that he genuinely loves Annie.
42	* KidsPlayMatchmaker: Jonah sees how sad his widowed father is, and calls a talk radio show to find him a wife. Many ''many'' women mail letters, but only one really connects with him. He (and his friend) spend the second half of the movie trying to get them together.
43	* LousyLoversAreLosers: {{Discussed\|Trope}} and [[ZigZaggingTrope ZigZagged]]. Annie's mother mentions how meeting her husband was LoveAtFirstSight but admits that it took several years for things to "work like clockwork" in bed, so Annie shouldn't be worried if it takes a while with [[DisposableFiance her fiancé Walter]]. Annie insists that things ''are'' like clockwork between them... only for a later scene to reveal that she is referring to Walter's nighttime routine of medications, which leave him so tired that they don't have sex ''at all''. (This is a significant deviation from the original script, where they do make love in the aforementioned scene). Not much wonder that Annie's affections get swayed by a voice on the radio. {{Downplayed\|Trope}}, since, other than his blandness, Walter is a perfectly decent guy who [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy lets her go willingly]] once she tells him about her feelings -- just not the one for Annie.
44	* LoveAtFirstSight: Sam confides to Dr. Marsha that he had this reaction when he met his wife Maggie and he has the same reaction when he sees Annie.
45	* LoveBeforeFirstSight: Annie essentially falls in love with Sam while listening to his story on the radio without having any idea what he looks like.
46	* ManlyTears: Played for laughs, when Sam and Greg tear up while reminiscing about ''Film/TheDirtyDozen''.
47	** Sam seems quite close to tears of relief when he finds Jonah at the end of the film.
48	%%* MaybeEverAfter
49	%%* MinorFlawMajorBreakup: Walter's allergies.
50	%%* MissingMom
51	* MistakenForRomance: Annie sees Jonah and Sam embracing a woman and assumes she's Sam's new girlfriend (it doesn't help that her hairstyle is identical to Victoria's, whom she saw in a photograph). It turns out she's Sam's ''sister'', coming to town for a visit.
52	* TheMountainsOfIllinois: In 1993, Seattle had a bus tunnel, not a subway.
53	* NoRomanticResolution: What happens after they meet?
54	* ParentWithNewParamour: At one point, Sam dates a woman who Jonah hates. Conversely, without even having met her, he readily declares Annie as "my new mom."
55	%%* PostModernism
56	* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Annie is guilty of a long string of bad behavior, including emotionally cheating on her fiancee and eventually last-minute dumping him with little fanfare or care for his feelings. But since she's a protagonist of a romantic comedy of course all her actions are considered justified in the pursuit of True Love.
57	* RaceForYourLove: Annie tears across New York City to reach Sam at the Empire State Building.
58	* RomanticRunnerUp: Nothing is really wrong with Walter and Victoria. That they are perfectly decent human beings makes you feel a little sorry for them.
59	* ShoutOut: A magazine writer suggests publishing a story about a soup vendor whose incredible talent is matched by his incredible temper. According to screenwriter Nora Ephron in the DVD commentary, this is a reference to Al Yeganeh, an actual soup chef in New York who would later garner infamy as the basis for Yev Kassem in the 1995 ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' episode [[Recap/SeinfeldS7E6TheSoupNazi "The Soup Nazi"]].
60	* SecondLove: Annie will be this to Sam.
61	* SexyShirtSwitch: A deleted scene from the original script has Sam having a fantasy about Annie dressed like this.
62	* SkyscraperMessages: The finale puts a giant red heart shape on the four sides of the Empire State Building.
63	* StalkerWithACrush: Annie looks Sam up on the hi-tech 90's computer and pretty much stalks him through the city.
64	* StalkingIsLove: Rare female example. Annie is so convinced that Sam is the one she looks him up online and hires a detective to keep an eye on him. However, it's all in the name of true love, so the movie portrays her creepy behavior as romantic.
65	* StartsWithTheirFuneral: The opening sequence is of Maggie's burial.
66	* SymbolicallyBrokenObject: Annie tries on her grandmother's wedding dress, only to have it immediately rip. She wails "It's a sign!". Her mother gently reminds her "You don't believe in signs", but sure enough, she ends up not marrying Walter.
67	* TemptingFate: Sam's last line of the prologue is to declare, "This kind of thing doesn't happen twice", referring to great love he had for his wife, in response to his sister's insistence that he'll meet someone eventually. Sure enough, his reaction when he sees Annie shows that he's wrong.
68	* TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot: Annie and Walter celebrate New Year's Eve in Baltimore. The next scene is of Sam and Jonah doing the same thing in Seattle, which is three hours behind Baltimore. In fact, many scenes between the two cities imply that it's the same time in both places. Quite glaring considering that in an early scene, Jonah explicitly says, "It's not that late in Seattle". (When he calls the radio show).
69	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What happened to Victoria?
70	%%* YouWatchTooMuchX: See Becky's quote at the top of the page.

Context Film / SleeplessInSeattle