Sleepless in Seattle

Book Retorts

This week Danielle brings Sam the classic 1993 Nora Ephron movie Sleepless in Seattle. Sam, the Tom Hanks character henceforth referred to as Tom to avoid confusion, recently lost his wife. In his grief, he decides it’s a good idea to move him and his eight-year-old son to Seattle from Chicago. Also, Tom is an architect because he’s a romantic interest in a 90’s movie. Anyway, in Seattle Tom’s son calls into to a national radio therapist show (somehow this isn’t Fraiser) to lament that his dad hasn’t found a new love in the mere 18-months since his mother died. Coincidentally, Baltimore based…journalist? Annie (Meg Ryan, of course) hears the radio show and immediately becomes creepily obsessed with Tom despite already being engaged to the perfect man: future president and ghost mansion owner Bill Pullman. Annie decides to abuse her journalistic position and also hires a private investigator to track Tom down. She also writes him a letter saying they should meet on the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day, so she’s gone full wacko. Tom, meanwhile, has begun dating a lovely woman, but his son is determined to break them up because he read Annie’s letter and thinks they should be together instead. And here’s where the movie takes a hard turn into crazy town. Annie lightly stalks Tom and his son, his son continues to be a jerk and manages to run away to New York. Annie is also just the worst to her fiancé, who’s just the nicest and best person, as she waffles back-and-forth about whether she should run off to the Empire State Building to maybe meet a man she has only heard on the radio and dump Bill Freaking Pullman. So join us to hear Sam and Danielle lose their minds as they try to figure out why anyone would root for these people to get together.

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Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

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