#seriously i still find it genuinely hilarious that Hugh appears to have been the only of all of Edward's partner who expected exclusivity

[thewritingpossum]

you know Edward must have initially tried to convince Hugh to become his fourth weed smoking boyfriend only for Hugh to hit back like

[pinelife3]

Sleepless in Seattle

I rewatched Sleepless in Seattle recently on a plane, and now I’ve crawled out of my cave to declare: this movie is not romantic!

Directed by Nora Ephron, Sleepless in Seattle, is regarded as part of the canon of great rom-coms. Ephron and Rob Reiner (who actually appears in Sleepless in Seattle with a great bit about tiramisu) are kind of the big-dogs of rom-coms in that people still talk about the films they made 20+ years ago (some together, some separately):

The Princess Bride

When Harry Met Sally

Sleepless in Seattle

You’ve Got Mail

Rom-coms are tricky to define - for example, is Shakespeare in Love a rom-com? There is romance and comedy, but the lovers are separated at the end. What about Top Gun? There are iconic romantic scenes and the lovers do end up together, but the love is really a conciliatory prize (the real prize is being the best at flying) and the romance is more of a B or C plot in the film, so Top Gun probably doesn’t qualify. People talk about rom-coms as having to posses certain tropes - for example:

A neurotic, highly mannered protagonist (ideally played by Meg Ryan or Hugh Grant)

An argument featuring dramatic irony, where the audience knows more than the characters and sees their misunderstanding unfold

A grand final gesture to win a lover back after a stupid misunderstanding: a last-minute dash to the airport, a last minute dash to a new year’s eve party, a last minute dash to the Empire State Building

But for our purposes, let’s say a rom-com is anything that:

Places the romantic plot at the core of its film AND

Has a happy ending (i.e. the lovers are together at the end) AND

Features genuine attempts at humour along the way. 

LOTR features a romance plot, but there’s a lot of other stuff going on (something about a ring?!), therefore it’s not a rom-com. Same deal with Bridesmaids. I would classify Superbad as a kind of rom-com because most actions taken by the protagonists are to secure love (or at least sex) from the girls they like. The English Patient? Romantic and HILARIOUS but the lovers aren’t together in the end.

So does Sleepless in Seattle qualify as a rom-com?

Yes, the whole point of the movie is to get Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks together. This plot dominates the film - but is it romantic? More on this to follow.

Yes, in the world of the film, a happy ending is secured because Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are together

Yes, there are some laughs along the way. Mostly at the expense of poor Bill Pullman who is playing a man with severe allergies. There is also some precocious-child related humour

Back to point one: I contend that the ‘romantic plot’ in Sleepless in Seattle is actually anti-romantic. In fact, there are two romance plot lines (both of which fail to be romantic) because this bitch is engaged to another man throughout the ‘romance’ with Tom Hanks.

Before we get into that though I have another major gripe: at the start of the film, Meg Ryan and her fiancé (Bill Pullman) leave home together to drive to a family Christmas lunch. They leave the same location at the same time and are heading to the same location - no stops along the way. But for some reason they take separate cars. The film provides no reasoning for the separate cars. It is patently odd and really bothers me.

Let’s take a look at the script:

________________________________________________

EXT. BALTIMORE SUN BUILDING - LATE AFTERNOON - CHRISTMAS EVE

As Annie [Meg Ryan] comes out of the newspaper building with WALTER JACKSON [Bill Pullman], a tall, handsome man who wears a hat. They're carrying an armful of Christmas presents. They're walking toward the parking lot.

WALTER

The short one with black hair  is your cousin Irene --

ANNIE

-- who's married to --

WALTER

Harold, who ran away with his secretary but came back --

ANNIE

-- because Irene threatened to put the dog to sleep if he didn't --

WALTER

And your brother Tom is a psychology professor and is married to...Betsy --

ANNIE

-- who is the most competitive woman in the world --

They put the presents in the backs of their two cars and pull out together.

EXT. A HOUSE IN BALTIMORE SUBURBS - NIGHT

Christmas lights twinkling as the two cars pull up in front of a comfortable upper middle-class house and park their cars. They get out assembling presents.

________________________________________________

This whole thing with the two cars was scripted - and even in the script it’s unexplained. My suspicion is that this just a device to get her in the car alone later so she can hear Tom Hanks on the radio - and thereby fall in love with him. This is LAZY writing. Why not just write that she had a premonition and saw a wonderful widow in Seattle and knew that they should be together. That would make about as much sense as the separate cars.

People criticise rom-coms for having unrealistic premises. For example: Last Christmas, in which a woman hangs out with the ghost of a man who gave her his heart - via transplant - the previous year. A ridiculous premise made unbearably kitsch because of the connection to the WHAM song. But honestly that makes about as much sense as an engaged couple taking separate cars for no reason.

Allow that gaping goatse of a plot hole to set the scene for the other major problem with this film: our romantic heroine is already engaged. Engaged to a man she finds boring. She remains engaged to this poor guy throughout her infatuation and pursuit of Tom Hanks. She lives with this guy, sleeps with him, plans her wedding with him: all while she is falling in love with Tom Hanks. She remains engaged until the final 10 minutes of the film when she finally dumps him. She keeps telling this poor guy she loves him. It’s evil. Can you imagine what /r/relationships would say about someone who behaved this way? This is an emotional affair.

As much as rom-coms celebrate the pursuit of love and marriage, they also caution against bad or inadequate love: it is not romantic to settle. A classic example of this is Charlotte Lucas in Pride & Prejudice: she marries the ridiculous Mr Collins to secure her future and avoid spinsterhood - but she doesn’t love him and won’t ever love him because she doesn’t respect him. Readers in Austen’s time may have been more sympathetic to Charlotte’s decision since the nature of marriage was quite different back then and spinsterhood was a seriously undesirable outcome, but contemporary audiences commonly interpret Charlotte settling for Mr Collins as a weakness of character. That decision and her life with Mr Collins only serve to reflect further radiance on Elizabeth Bennet: wistful, bitey, beautiful, beloved for centuries. That’s why no one writes fan fiction about Charlotte Lucas. 

So, in Sleepless in Seattle, the audience sees that Meg Ryan is settling for the wrong guy. This is communicated to us primarily through the visual gags around Bill Pullman’s allergies: he uses a huge number of tissues, he’s allergic to everything from strawberries to bees, he has a special respirator machine to help him sleep. This guy can’t get the girl! He can’t even breath properly. It’s clearly isn’t meant to work out between them. No, no this won’t do at all. 

What is the function of the unsuitable fiancé as a plot device? Why couldn’t this be a romance between two single people? Is it to make her cross-country pursuit seem more whimsical and fun? If it to demonstrate that she can get a guy? I actually think it’s meant to create stakes: it’s so she has something to hold her back from ‘following her heart’. This is a way of adding tension so she’s risking something (normalcy, comfort) by making the last minute dash to the Empire State Building to meet Hanks (who represents the possibility of windswept romance). Never mind that they’ve never actually spoken to each other. He’s a single parent? Um sexy! He’s a widow? Swoon. Seattle is rainy? I’m already wet.

If it’s important to the plot that she is already in a couple when she falls for Hanks, and that she casts aside an unsatisfying relationship for the mere possibility of passionate excitement, then we have had it wrong all along: the grand romantic gesture of Sleepless in Seattle is Meg Ryan dumping her fiancé. Forget the Empire State Building. It’s her telling him that she’s had an emotional affair. It’s her taking off her engagement ring. It’s her blaming him for being boring rather than working on their relationship. It’s her leaving him sat in that restaurant alone so she can go and pursue a stranger.  

This movie is not romantic.