The Strange Complexity of Sleepless in Seattle. (1993)
A personal reflection on the Nora Ephron classic 30 years later. Spoiler warning.
Films resonate with you you for particular reasons at different times of your life. A myriad of factors can affect this - your age, your relationship status or simply your life experiences up to that point. Mindlessly flicking through the channels on a Friday evening a few weeks ago, I stumbled on the final act of the Nora Ephron classic Sleepless in Seattle. It compelled me to watch and completely drew me in. It was also the first time I had watched the ending in the company of my wife. There may well have been a glass of wine imbibed and I found myself in tears as the credits rolled. Isabelle asked me why this specific film affected me so much and it got me thinking. I was not completely sure.
Rewind the clock thirty years to Galway in 1993. The twelve year old me walks out of the Galway Omniplex on a cold November night having watched Sleepless in Seattle for the second time in as many weeks. On my own. It was not the type of film a 12 year old lad would ask his mate to watch with him in the cinema - questions would be asked. In any case I preferred going to the cinema by myself - it was just me and the screen. With the passing of time and a recent re-watching of the whole film, the reasons for the film’s impact upon me as a child started coalescing in front of me like a puzzle that had been laying dormant for the whole of my adult life. Its pieces finally arranging themselves in their proper places with time and knowledge acting as the code-breakers.
1. The Loss of a Parent.
Despite the film being known as one of the flagship rom-coms of the 90s, it deals with grief and bereavement from the outset. The opening shot frames father Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) and son Jonah (Ross Malinger) standing together at the graveside of Sam’s wife. In the accompanying voice narration Sam conveys how difficult it is to explain his wife’s death to his eight year old son. Grief is tightly woven into the texture of the film. Sam decides to leave Chicago permanently and moves to Seattle for a new start.
Two years previously I had been standing at the graveside of my own father as a ten year old. I had slipped away from the arms of my family and vividly remember staring down into the grave at the coffin which encased my father Peter. The opening scene of the film echoed my own memory of my father’s graveside but with a clear and significant difference - Jonah’s father Sam stood beside him looking down at the grave. It was the inverse of my reality but completely in tune with my childhood grief - a cathartic balm that helped soothe the raw wound which was still felt nearly two years later. In its own way, the film was offering me an opportunity for me to grieve with my father - for my father. The film created a psychic space where I could be with him again through the performances of Tom Hanks and Ross Malinger. That was me and my father, trying our best to navigate through the pain and messiness together. I had him back - for an hour and forty minutes.
2. The Soundtrack
A light instrumental piano piece plays over this opening scene. As a twelve year old, I would have probably recognised the piece as the song Stardust written by Hoagy Carmichael but popularised later by the great Nat King Cole. I had become an avid fan of Nat King Cole as a young teenager and Stardust was one of my favourites. The confluence of such an evocative opening graveside scene with the subtle notes of Stardust made the film seem like it was created just for me at that time of my life. This was Nora Ephron as a benevolent psychotherapist. Her script, direction and empathy spoke volumes to that 12 year old sitting in that dark cinema. She told me things were going to be ok.
The full song of Stardust is played in a very poignant later scene where Sam imagines his dead wife into being. She has a short interaction with him as he lies on the sofa, her angelic figure looking longingly and lovingly at him while he expresses how much he misses her. The opening strings of Stardust always acted as a sort of portal for me as a young child. They transported me away from grief and anxiety to a more peaceful plain that was infused with deep love. It seemed a suitable choice for such a scene in the film, a scene which existed in an ethereal state but filled with the love that existed between Sam and his wife.
The great Satchmo also features on the soundtrack with the classic As Time Goes By. This was a favourite song of my wife’s father who passed away when she was 14. It had stayed in my subconscious as a result of this and I borrowed the phrase ‘you must remember this’ for a song I wrote many years ago entitled ‘You’re my Girl.’ This added another level of poignancy to the recent viewing of the film. Elements of my life before I had seen the film in 1993 clearly resonated and now elements subsequent to the viewing were doing the same. Life catching up with art if you will.
Lyrics to Stardust:
Sometimes I wonder how I spend
The lonely night
Dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
3. The Empire State Building.
In the summer of 1991, I spent 3 months in the US. I travelled there with my father and met my mother Nancy over there in Massachusetts - she had been working there as a live- in carer for her Auntie Babe who was elderly. The greatest day of those three months was when the three of us visited New York together on a day trip. Witnessing this metropolis as a 10 year old who had been raised on a diet of American TV programmes and films was simply awe-inspiring. The highlight of the day was visiting the Empire State Building and getting the elevator to the top floor. The building was iconic.
Sleepless in Seattle features the film An Affair to Remember (1957) several times and also adopts aspects of the plot, particularly the failed meeting of the couple on top of the Empire State Building. Carrey Grant and Deborah Kerr do not manage to fulfil their planned rendezvous atop the building on Valentine’s Day but Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do succeed. Annie (Meg Ryan) breaks off her engagement to Walter, played by Bill Pullman, to get to the top of the Empire State to hopefully meet her great love Sam. My own mother Nancy was engaged when she met my father and, whoever the poor man was, simply had no chance against my father. I felt a great sense of sympathy for Walter in the film as he was a good man with a good heart. However the same can’t be said for the man who lost out to my father - I mean I would not be writing this otherwise.
Desperate to find a new partner for his father and mother for himself, Jonah corresponds with Annie through a series of letters and arranges the meeting atop the Empire State. Sam is unaware of this however and discovers that Jonah has flown himself to New York to meet Annie. Sam, in a state of panic, flies to New York after him. Jonah makes it to the top floor and starts asking random women if they are Annie - no sign of her. It begins to get late and Jonah still waits in the cold night by himself with just his backpack. Sam finally makes it to the top floor and finds Sam alone. They embrace.
This segment of the film where father and son are separated and then reunited made a great impact on me when I re-watched it recently. I can only presume that it had a similar impact on the 12 year old Neil. That visual reunion of father and son fulfilled a deep yearning I had and still have for a fatherly embrace. Only two years previously in 1991, I had stood on the same floor of the Empire State with my father on our visit to New York. We had looked out over the incredible cityscape together. I had lost him that year only 2 months later. But here we were again two years later back on the Empire State, embracing each other - back together again.
Sam and Jonah enter the elevator together to depart. The doors close. The neighbouring elevator door opens as theirs close. Annie exits. They have missed each other. Annie finds Jonah’s backpack. Sam and Jonah return to retrieve it and finally they encounter Annie. All three are now united. Sam looks into Annie’s eyes with a sense of wonderment as all three move towards the elevator. Jonah had managed to find Annie. The difference was that I would never need another father. He was irreplaceable and I think my mother felt the same.
Jonah, Annie and Sam left the Empire State Building that day much like I had 2 years previously with my own parents. Annie and Sam were beginning their lives together but my parents union would soon come to an end in November of that same year. What is abundantly clear however is that the ‘magic’ that Annie and Sam experienced the day they met characterised my parents’ relationship right until the end. They are both gone now. When I yearn to be with them I close my eyes and let my imagination take me to that windswept floor of the Empire State Building, where we wander around basking in the views over the New York skyline. We do not enter a lift. There is no need. We stay right where we are.
Beautiful Neil.