Corresponding in New York

You've Got Mail

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Dabney Coleman, Dave Chappelle

Released: December 18, 1998

Wow, this movie brought back memories of AOL. Not necessarily good memories, but aggravating memories. Remember how long it took to get onto AOL and that ANNOYING dial tone sound (which I was reminded of because that irritating sound is used in the movie when they get on AOL). It was like EUGHGHGHGHGHRRRRH,,,RRRRRRRR...!!! Okay, I can't really mimic it with my typing, but if you've ever used America Online, you know what I'm talking about! Now, I liked AOL when I had it, but I didn't have anything else to compare it too, but once internet connection got better, you can bet I was done with that sh*t! 

So as you may or may not know, this is the third movie Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in together. Even though they have way more screen time together in this movie than they did in Sleepless in Seattle, I would say Sleepless is the more iconic and beloved movie. The first movie they were in together was Joe Versus the Volcano, a movie I don't think I've ever seen (if I have, I've forgotten everything about it). 

The beginning of this movie with the credits has some of the worst computer graphics I've ever seen, but I'm guessing for the time (1998), they were supposed to be innovative or something. Yikes! We are first introduced to Kathleen (Meg Ryan) who lives with her writer boyfriend, Frank (Greg Kinnear). After he leaves for work, she tiptoes around the house to make sure he's gone so she can sign onto AOL and essentially cheat on her significant other as she's been having a relationship with someone she's met online. The movie wants you to think this is the cutest thing ever. As soon as I heard the sound of that irritating dial tone, I thought to myself, Yep! That's a sound I sure don't miss! As soon as she signs on, we hear the computerized voice tell her, "Welcome! You've got mail!" That's a sound that will be forever etched into my brain, even though it's probably been more than twenty years since I last heard it. (Okay, obviously that's a lie since I just saw this movie not that long ago, but you know what I mean). Kathleen mouths "You've got mail" along with the computer voice and that is kinda cute, I will admit. We see her screen name is Shopgirl which would never happen. More likely, it would be Shopgirl1962 or Shoppppgirrrll. There's no way she would be able to get simply "Shopgirl". I still remember my AOL screen name: it was Hourless. I didn't want to add numbers (I don't know why I was so opposed to numbers in my screen name, I guess because it doesn't look as nice, but now I usually do have to add number to any site where I have a screen name and I usually just use my birthday...now you know my birthday!) I got the name from a horse that won the Belmont Stakes in the early 20th century. I scoured my almanac of the list of horses that won races that are part of the Triple Crown; you can find a lot of interesting names and unusual names since they have very strict rules about what people name their horses since you obviously you can't have repeat names. 

Anyhoo, Kathleen does indeed have mail just like the AOL computer guy tells her. It's an e-mail from someone with the screen name NY152. I suppose this screen name is more realistic to get than "Shopgirl", but yawn, how boring! Though "Shopgirl" isn't particularly exciting or original. BTW, you may be thinking Kathleen chose the name "Shopgirl" because she likes to shop, but you would be wrong. While I am sure she does like to shop, she has it because she owns a children's bookstore called The Shop Around the Corner. The e-mail from NY152 is presumably from a man around her age (how would she even know for sure since she's never met him?) that talks about his dog and how much he loves New York in the fall. This scene establishes that they don't know each other's names or addresses (or what they look like, for that matter). NY152 tells Shopgirl "this not knowing has its charms." Uh-huh, sure. 

If you haven't already guessed by now, NY152 is Tom Hanks, whose character's name is Joe. His screen name is what it is because he lives on 152nd street in New York. These people aren't the most original with their screen names! Like Kathleen, Joe also lives with a significant other. His girlfriend, Patricia (Parker Posey), lives with him. After she leaves, like Kathleen, Joe is also tiptoeing to the computer to make sure he's not caught. I'm not really sure why they gave our two main characters live-in significant others. I guess to be an obstacle, but it just made our main characters unlikeable because they were essentially cheating on them. Sure, Shopgirl and NY152 have never met, but they were still having an emotional connection online and were keeping the other a secret from their significant others. Super shady if you ask me! It's also so weird how Kathleen is acting like she is in love with this man she's never met (and could be anyone from a sixteen-year-old boy messing with her or an eighty-year-old lonely man or a man her age....but who is a serial killer...I guess the concept of being "catfished" wasn't something people thought of back then). She writes him, "I can't wait to hear those three little words (she means "you've got mail", not the other three you may be thinking of!). I don't hear the streets of New York, jut the sound of my heart beating." Huh, what? Who says that?

As "Dreams" by the Cranberries (the only good song in this movie) is playing, we see a montage of both Kathleen and Joe walking the streets of New York...and just barely missing each other several times! Joe goes into Starbucks just as Kathleen is coming out of it and we see them walking parallel each other on opposites sides of a gate. 

So I mentioned Kathleen owns a small children's book shop called The Shop Around the Corner. It used to belong to her mom, but Kathleen took over when her mom died...whenever that was as we're not given a definite time when this happened. Since it only caters to children (and probably only children to a certain age because I didn't see any young adult novels in there, though maybe there were) it's a very niche shop. It is a very charming little shop and feels very cozy and homey. Kathleen is very personable with her patrons and knows many of them by name. She has story hour and just makes sure everyone who comes to her store has a good experience. The only thing people might gripe about on their Yelp page might be the prices because they tend to be a little higher than what you would find at a chain bookstore. 

And speaking of chain bookstores...Joe's father (Dabney Coleman) owns a chain of Barnes and Noble clone bookstores called Fox and Sons and they're opening on on the Upper West Side which isn't too far from The Shop Around the Corner. (In fact, I'm pretty certain where they filmed was a B&N). Joe tells his friend/employee, Kevin (Dave Chappelle), about their customers: "We're going to seduce them with our square footage, our discounts, our deep armchairs and our cappuccino." 

Joe's dad is getting married again. The "again" implies that he's been married quite a few times. The woman he is marrying, Gillian, is quite younger than him as they have a four-year-old son together. They've been living together for five years. At this point, why even bother getting married? So a thirty-something man has a four-year-old brother. Granted, it's his half-brother, but still, that's odd. The whole thing with Joe's unusual family situation doesn't really add anything and doesn't need to be in the movie. 

I had to chuckle during a scene where we see Kathleen on the subway and she's reading a book as are some of the other people around her. No way this would happen now; most people would be on their phones! I say that even though I would be someone with a book.

When Kathleen opens her shop the same day she's just messaged Joe, her young employees, Christina and George (Heather Burns and Steve Zahn) can tell something is up with her because she's acting all lovey-dovey. When they ask her what's going on, she asks, "Is it infidelity if you're involved with someone on e-mail?" Uh, yes, especially if you're building an emotional bond with that person. We find out that she met NY152 in the "Over 30" chatroom. Oh, man, the only thing I remember about chat rooms were the stupid A/S/L template somebody would type every thirty seconds, I swear. Also, I remember that in chat rooms everyone was talking at the same time and it was just a mess. That got real old real fast. She tells her co-workers they both started chatting about "books and music" and how much they "both love New York." You know, I listened to a podcast where they said they treat New York like it's some quaint little town and I have to agree with that statement. I wonder if they went into their own private chat room or just kept chatting while there were other people in the chatroom. Oh, besides not knowing his name or what he looks like, she also doesn't know what he does because they agreed not to tell each other that for some reason. Gee, how totally convenient! Because if she learned he was part of the Fox Books empire, she would not take so kindly to him! 

And speaking of Fox Books, Kathleen and her employees see the building where they have painted "Fox Books Coming Soon" ON THE BUILDING. Why did they paint that on the building? Why not just make a sign? They're just going to have to paint over the letters. 

We get a montage of NY152 and Shopgirl (aka Joe and Kathleen) exchanging cutesy little stories and insights. We see Joe attempting to read Pride and Prejudice as we hear a voiceover from Kathleen telling him she's read it 200 times (200 times? That seems like overkill.) She tells him that she gets "lost in the language" and we see Joe looking really bored and flippantly toss the side aside. I'm on Joe's side here. I've never read Pride and Prejudice. I once tried to read Wuthering Heights. Boy, that didn't last long. I think I read the first chapter, then was like, Nope, not for me. But when Kathleen tells him, "Read it. I know you'll love it," he throws up his hands in defeat and reaches for the book which he does read. I'm not really sure why Kathleen thinks he'll love it. I guess they've had enough discussion about books for her to come to that conclusion.

The day Joe meets Kathleen (without knowing she's the one he's been corresponding with, obviously) is the day he spends with his four-year-old half-brother, Matt. Also along with them is Annabel, the daughter of his grandfather, who is probably around ten. What the heck is up with this family? They sure like to have children when they are old! Gillian brings the kids to him along with the nanny in case he couldn't handle them, but he tells the nanny to take the day off. Gillian tells Joe to kiss her because she's going to be his "wicked stepmother" and as he hesitantly kisses her on the cheek, she turns her head so they're kissing on the lips. I thought she was making a pass at Joe because she is closer in age to him than she is to Joe's father, and let's face it, she's only getting married to Mr. Fox because he's worth a lot of money. 

We see a cute montage of Tom Hanks and the two kids at the fair doing cute stuff like a ring toss, riding in cars that go around in circles, getting their faces painted, eating cotton candy, and hitting a scale with a hammer to see how much weight they can hit (which when Joe does, the hammer goes flying, so I don't know if this was purposeful or something they left in because Tom Hanks accidentally lost control of it). When they leave the fair, they walk past Kathleen's shop where there is a sign saying that story hour is about to begin and the kids want to see the "Storybook Lady", who is obviously Kathleen. While she reads from a children's book (I don't even remember what it was, but I wasn't familiar with), the children are engrossed in the story and Joe is clearly charmed.

Afterwards, Kathleen is showing Annabel some books. She assumes Joe is her dad, which, I can't blame her, because I would probably think the same thing. I would not think that this little girl is the aunt to this grown man, but that is what she tells Kathleen. 

Annabel sneezes and Kathleen offers the girl her (unused) handkerchief. Okay, why would you give a child (or anyone for that matter) a handkerchief to blow their snotty nose with? There are daises on it and Kathleen tells her that her mom embroidered them on it because daises are her favorite flower. I thought this was going to tip off Joe, like maybe Shopgirl had mentioned daises being her favorite flower, and he was going to figure out who she was, but he doesn't. I suppose even if he did know that fact about Shopgirl, I'm sure a lot of people like daisies. However, daisies will come back later on in the movie. And it wouldn't make sense for one of them to know who the other is so early in the film. We still have a lot of shenanigans to go through! Anyway, in a later scene, Kathleen reaches under the counter to retrieve a box of Kleenex which she offers to a woman who is crying because she is upset that Kathleen has to (spoiler alert!) close her store. This is proof that Kathleen didn't need to give Annabel her handkerchief! I would rather give someone my handkerchief to dry their tears than to someone who just sneezed! Look, I get that we need to have a link to the daisies, but that just bugs me! 

When Joe asks who she is, she tells him her name and that she owns this store. When she asks who HE is, he just replies, "Joe. Just call me Joe." This won't be the first non-truth that he keeps from her! 

The Fox bookstore has been opened for six days and Kathleen learns that they did $1200 less than the same week last year. Her young employee, Christina, is worried they will have to close and she will never be able to find another part time job and won't be able to pay her rent and will have to move to Brooklyn. I have so many questions: Where does she live now? And does she have another job? Because surely she can't afford anything in Manhattan if she's working part time at a children's book store unless Kathleen is super generous with the salary. Also, I'm sure it wouldn't be that HARD to find a part-time job....there must be thousands of them in NYC. Of course, I don't live there, so what do I know? Also, when she mentions she'll have to move to Brooklyn, she says it with such disdain dripping in her voice. I guess this was before Brooklyn became a cool place to live. 

Kathleen learns who Joe really is (as in that he's part of the Sons of Fox and Sons Bookstores, not that he's NY152, because, again, it is to early for them to find out who they really are) when she's attending a party with Frank. After she sees Joe and chats with him for a few minutes, someone comes up to her and tells her he can't believe she was talking to Joe Fox. She confronts Joe and accuses him of spying on her because she is the competition. 

Later that evening, Kathleen e-mails NYC152 to vent to him about Joe (which is hilarious since she is talking to Joe), but of course she's being as vague as possible so he doesn't even have a clue she's actually talking about HIM. When he replies back, he asks her if she thinks they should meet and Kathleen responds by closing her laptop. 

We then get a montage of either Kathleen seeing Joe everywhere she goes and trying to avoid him or Joe seeing Kathleen everywhere he goes and trying to avoid her. 

Things aren't looking too good for Kathleen's bookstore. A children's book author will be signing books soon at Fox and Sons, an author who used to have a good relationship with Kathleen and the Shop Around the Corner. Also, it's around Christmas and Kathleen sees many holiday shoppers walking by holding Fox and Sons Bookstore bags. How depressing is that? 

Kathleen emails NY152 and tells him she wishes her mother was still alive so she could ask her for some advice and Joe replies and ask if he can help. When Kathleen is about to reply, she gets an IM from Joe who tells her he had a feeling she would be online. (Um, if I remember right, you can see when someone is online unless they have you blocked or something. It's not like you're blindly sending them an instant message and guessing that they're online). Anyway, this seems to be the first time they're chatting live. She tells him her business is in trouble and he replies that he's a "brilliant businessman" and that he can help. When he asks her what she does, she refuses to tell him since they had both agreed on "no specifics." Obviously, this is done for plot purposes. Haha, can you imagine if she had told him she owned The Shop Around the Corner and he realized he was talking to Kathleen? But it's not time for either of them to realize who the other really is yet. 

So she vaguely tells him the problem and he tells her she "needs to go to war". Basically he writes a three paragraph essay on IM; doesn't he know that's what emails are for? I almost wanted to type out the entire thing he wrote to her, but that would take way too long and I didn't want to bore you with the details. (There were a lot of references to The Godfather). He writes her, "It's not personal, it's business" and tells her to recite that until she's all psyched up.

She asks Frank if he could write something about the store and he does. After his article comes out, people start picketing in front of Fox and Sons with signs that read "Bigger isn't better" and "Put socks in Fox" (eh, I feel like that one's kinda stretching it). They chant, "1, 2, 3, 4 we don't want your superstore, 5, 6, 7, 8, go away and close the gate." 

Ever after all this publicity, there hasn't been any difference in Kathleen's store's sales. So she e-mails NY152 to tell him she needs help and ask if he still wants to meet. They really hadn't talked about meeting since he had asked her earlier and she just ignored his comment about it. So now this is when the movie starts to get interesting. They're finally going to realize who the other person is and that they actually hate each other in real life! Ruh-roh! So they agree on a time and place to meet.

While Kathleen is already at Cafe Lalo (insert Better Call Saul joke here) Joe is walking with Kevin to meet Shopgirl. He has brought Kevin with him so he can check out the woman he's to meet. Shopgirl has told Joe that she will be have a book with a rose in it (ugh, how cliche is that? I would be too embarrassed to have a book (that she so prominently places on the table) with a rose sticking on it. If I were meeting somebody I never met, I would just tell them what color top I'm wearing or something like that) so that's how he will know it's her. Joe plans to only stay ten minutes. He'll say hello, have a cup of coffee, then "split". Now I know what you're thinking: couldn't have Joe just peered into the cafe and take a peek and see for himself? Well, yes, of course he would have, but it wouldn't have the same impact. You see, Kevin knows what Kathleen Kelly looks like because he saw her being interviewed on TV. 

Cafe Lalo -
they serve killer coffee!

So Kevin peers through the entrance and spots the book with the rose in it and first tells Joe that the woman looks very similar to Kathleen Kelly, then tells him it IS her. Joe is such a douche in this scene and I'm wondering why we are rooting for these two to get together? Instead of going in and admitting that he's NY152, he decides to let her wait there for a few minutes, then go in and act like he just popped in for a coffee and pretty much torments her and makes her feel bad about being stood up even though he's the one who stood her up! He tells her "this is a coincidence" that he ran into her. He sits at her table even though she tells him she's waiting for somebody (although, unbeknownst to her, the person she is waiting for is already sitting at her table!). He tells her he'll just sit there until her friend arrives. Obviously he knows nobody will be coming and just wants to rub it in her face and watch her face fall as any guy who enters completely ignore her. He even makes fun of the rose she brought. And when she asks him to leave, he just sits at the table behind her. This has to be the worst character Tom Hanks has ever played! He's such a jerk! He's just making her feel bad for being stood up and she tells him the man she's meeting is nothing like him (Oh, honey, if you only knew...) and tells him, "If he's not here, he has a reason." Joe takes offense to this and tells her she doesn't really know him to which she replies, "If I really knew you, I know what I would find. Instead of a brain, a cash register. Instead of a heart, a bottom line." She also tells him nobody will remember him or his and store and that he's "nothing but a suit." 

Of course she e-mails NY152 to tell him she went to meet him but he wasn't there and she felt foolish and wishes she knew why he wasn't there. I feel like if this happened in real life, the person who was stood up wouldn't even contact the person who stood them up because, odds are, they wouldn't even reply. She tells him while she was waiting for him, "a man who has made my professional life a misery" showed up, and, "for the first time in my life, when confronted with a horrible, insensitive person, I knew exactly what I wanted to say and I said it." She writes him this because they have had conversations about this. She had told him when she is provoked by someone she doesn't like, she gets tongue tied and her mind goes blank, then she "spends all night tossing and turning, trying to figure out what [she] should have said." She tells him it was the first time in her life she was able "to say the exact thing [she] wanted at the exact moment [she] wanted to say it. She goes on to say she she felt terrible afterwards and pretty much apologized to Joe without realizing it.

When Joe receives this e-mail, he thinks of an excuse as to why he wasn't there and starts typing things like he was out of town or he was stuck in a meeting and the electricity went out and he couldn't get out of the building. This scene drove me absolutely crazy because every time he would delete something, instead of highlighting the section he wanted to delete and pressing the "delete" button, he would press the backspace/delete key several times to delete the individual characters he had just typed! UGHGHGHGH! That was so irritating! WHY do people own a computer if they don't know how to use one?? 

After taking ten minutes to delete everything, he starts over and writes, "Dear friend, I cannot tell you what happened last night." (Oh, yeah, that doesn't sound shady at all!) He continues to say he feels terrible she found herself in a situation that caused her "additional pain" and that he will "explain everything" someday. Why not just come clean right now? I think the longer he waits, the worse it's going to be. At least, in theory. 

The movie takes a surprisingly realistic turn when Kathleen finally realizes she needs to close her store. I honestly was expecting her to come through and "win" and be able to keep her store. It is very sad when she has to close it. She puts a sign on the door which reads, "After 42 years, we are closing our doors. We have loved being part of your lives."  Now, ironically, Fox and Sons Bookstore would be closed (probably not too long after Kathleen's shop closed) because Amazon would be taking over. So suck it, Joe Fox!

She and Frank break up and it is the most mutual break up ever. They go out for dinner (well, first, actually they go to a movie, but they end up leaving during the previews because Frank can tell Kathleen is upset about something, so basically they wasted their money on a movie they never saw). At the restaurant Kathleen basically tells him she wants to break up and he agrees. He even admits he has his eye on someone. It's like, dude, maybe not mention that. I know she wants to break up with you, but you don't need to justify why you want to break up with her. Though to be fair, she's essentially been cheating on him this whole time so I guess it's only fair that he has someone else on the sideline He asks her if there's someone else and she says no (:::coughthat'saliecough:::), but that "there is the dream of someone else." Okay, Kathleen, whatever makes you feel better. 

For some reason, she goes to the children's section at Fox Books. I guess to make herself even more depressed. No, the reason for this scene is for Joe to observe her. While she's there, someone comes up to a guy who is working and asks him about a certain book he can't find but the employee has no idea what he's talking about. Kathleen, overhearing all this, gives them her expertise. 

Joe also breaks up with his girlfriend and moves into his boat. Because apparently he can't afford an apartment? They sure tied up Kathleen and Joe breaking up with their significant others into a nice little bow, didn't they? We also found out Joe's dad broke up with Gillian. She ran off with the nanny, of all things. I was so confused by this because throughout the movie it seemed like she was coming onto Joe. There was the scene where she tricked him into kissing her on the lips. There's also another scene around Christmas where the entire family is listening to Annabel sing Christmas carols and Gillian sits next to Joe on the couch and starts massaging his thigh! Like, what the hell? This prompts Joe to get up and the nanny sits in his spot. I guess you could say that was a ruse to get Joe to leave so the two secret (very secret, as this came out of left field!) lovebirds could sit together. 

Okay, I mentioned earlier that Dreams is the only good song in this movie. I totally forgot that Signed, Sealed, Delivered plays while Joe goes to Kathleen's apartment to bring her flowers. And not just any flowers, but daisies! Aha! That scene with the daisies on the handkerchief has finally paid off! Joe is bringing her flowers because he heard she was sick (from who?). He rings her buzzer and she doesn't want him to come in. Even if they were on good terms, I doubt she would want him to come in because when you're sick, the last thing you want is to socialize! You just want to stay in bed and sleep! Even though she has adamantly told him she doesn't want him to come in, he does anyway when someone is leaving the building. Kathleen is in her pajamas and she's got Kleenex everywhere and is eating soup. Joe tells her he wants to be her friend and wants to know what happed with the guy at the cafe. Obviously, he knows what happened! He seems to have a sick pleasure of messing her this way. She replies "nothing" and affirms she is crazy about him. But why? Why is so so head over heels about this guy she's never met and (as far as she's concerned) stood her up? It doesn't make sense to me. Joe suggests that she should meet him. Oh, really, Joe? 

Kathleen agrees with Joe (for whatever reason; I know, I know, it's all part of the plot) and later e-mails NY152 to tell him she wants to meet him and he agrees and replies, "I'm in the middle of a project that needs tweaking" and they will meet after that. Of course, his project is to groom Kathleen to make her fall for him and get info about her conversations with NY152, to see her side of things. He gets Kathleen to tell him what NY152 wrote to her and he suggests that he might be married. She doesn't believe this at all, but he's all, "Oh, are you sure?" and this makes her write to NY152 to ask if he's married and he replies with something like, "I can't believe you would ask me something like that" and never gives her a yes or no answer. Aurgh, at this point he is just messing with her for his own amusement. I honestly don't understand what the point of all of this is except for him to be an a$$h0le. 

We find out that Kathleen is working on a children's book and she tells Joe that that NY152 was the one who got her thinking about writing, so you know he felt pretty smug when she told him that!

Kathleen mentions that they keep bumping into each other (because he is low-key stalking her, it's all part of his plan) and Joe suggests that they "bump" into each other on Saturday, knowing full well that Kathleen can't meet with him because she's already made plans to meet with NY152 that afternoon at Riverside Park. Joe suggests he mights be a "westside" and Kathleen says, "Maybe I've seen him and don't even know it" and Joe replies, "You could have seen him every day and not know it. He could be anybody." At this point, I'm wondering if Kathleen is beginning to suspect it's him. We get no real evidence that she might. 

Joe tells her this guy has great timing and has waited until he's convinced "that there's no other man that [she] could possibly love" and proceeds to tell her that if he wasn't who he was or she wasn't who she was (basically if they had different careers that didn't conflict with each other's), then he would have asked her for her number and took her on a date. He also wants to know, "How can you forgive this guy for standing you up, and not forgive me for putting you out of business." Yeah, I might be annoyed if someone stood me up, but if it was someone I had never met before, I probably wouldn't be as annoyed if it was someone I had an established relationship. I think someone taking your business and your means of making a living is way worse than some rand-o standing you up. She doesn't even answer him; just tells him she has to go. 

During this scene, I thought the movie might go in a different direction. I thought she and Joe might have a long, serious talk and Joe would confess his feelings for her and she would decide he was the one for her and just stop communicating with NY152 altogether. At this point, it seems like too much time has gone by for Joe to reveal he is really her pen pal without her getting ticked off. I don't know what you would do in a situation like this. If you started a relationship with a person who didn't know you were the one they were talking to online, would you tell them or just let it slide? However, this movie knows that their audience wants Kathleen to find out who NY152 is so it's not surprising it ends the way it does. 

NY152 (btw, super weird that you would be meeting someone in real life you met online and not even know their name; I get it's for plot points, but this makes no sense) told Kathleen he would be with his dog, Brinkley. Joe has never told Kathleen he has a dog. Very clever, movie. When Kathleen goes to the park to meet him, she hears a dog barking and hears someone yelling, "Brinkley!" That's when she sees Joe. She is surprised at first, then just smiles and laughs, shaking her head, like, "Oh, you." I'll tell you one thing. I would not have this reaction. I don't think anyone would realistically have this reaction. I think most people would be a little irked that he was basically jerking her chain this entire time. She tells him, "I wanted it to be you." Okay, she had to know it was him, right? Does she know how astronomical the odds are that NY152 and Joe would be the same person? They kiss and Brinkley jumps up on Joe which made me laugh. 

And they lived happily ever after. Until Fox Books went under because of Amazon. Yeah, this movie infuriated me how Joe was pretty much messing with Kathleen the last third of the movie and she seems to be okay with it when it's revealed he's NY152. Also, the weird subplot with his soon-to-be stepmother didn't need to be in there at all. 

So I found this wild fact when I was cruising through the movie's IMDb page. I don't know if any of it is 100% accurate because I know nothing about computers from 1997, let alone how much they would cost, but this blew my mind:

Joe is using an IMB Thinkpad 770 series, which had a retail price of $6,900 in 1997 dollars. Kathleen is using an Apple PowerBook G3 250, which had a list price of $5,700 in 1997 dollars.

Good lord! I can't imagine paying $6-7 thousand dollars for a laptop in any year's money! Apparently, $7,000 in 1997 is equivalent to nearly $13,000 in today's money. WTF? That seems insane! Is that even right? Basically I got my iMac, my MacBook, and my phone all for less than what Joe paid for his stupid clunky-ass laptop in 1997! Good thing he's a multi-millionaire!! 

More Than Friends

When Harry Met Sally

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby

Released: July 21, 1989

Oscar nominations:

Best Original Screenplay - Nora Ephron (lost to Tom Schulman for Dead Poet's Society) 

This is a movie I've always known about but have never seen until now. I didn't love it as much as I expected to, but I also didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Yep, I know I totally contradicted myself! I thought there were charming parts of the movie, but there were also parts that just made me internally groan. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as the titular Harry and Sally are very good together and have a good chemistry. The very first scene is when they meet; how perfect! It is 1977 and we're at the University of Chicago where Harry and Sally are graduating and off to New York for a new life. We don't really get too much other than Sally is friends with Amanda, who is Harry's girlfriend. Apparently Amanda found out that both her friend and boyfriend are going to New York so she suggested they car pool together. I don't know. I'm just speculating. I have no idea how they both ended up driving together to New York. All I know is I would never drive halfway across the country with anyone I was just meeting for the first time; I don't care if we have a mutual friend. Eff that! I do find it weird that Sally has never met her friend's boyfriend before. Why is this the first time they're meeting? (I know, I know, it's for the plot of the movie). They never tell us how close Sally and Amanda are (not very, apparently). Are they best friends? Did they have a couple classes together and just know each other that way? My guess is the latter is more on the right track. Still, it's just weird that Sally would agree to drive 788 miles (I Googled the distance) with a guy she's just met. 

The way they style Billy Crystal (who was 40) and Meg Ryan (who was 27; I didn't realize there was such a big age gap between the actors!) to look like college students in their early twenties is hilarious. They give Billy Crystal a hairpiece to hide his receding hairline and they dress him in a hoodie and jeans. At least he's wearing something that a young college person would wear; what they give Meg Ryan to wear is super bizarre even though she can pull off a young twenty-something much better since she is much closer to the actual age. She is wearing khaki shorts, knee high socks, and a blue cardigan over a yellow collared shirt. No college girl would ever wear this. What is this? Was this some kind of trend in the mid '70s? Or are they just trying to tell us she's an academic by the way she dresses? 

Once they get started on their road trip, we immediately see how different they are. Sally is very structured and tells him she thinks they should take turns driving in three hour shifts. Meanwhile, he's not paying attention to her and rifling through the backseat for his grapes (this happens seconds after they start driving, so why didn't he just keep the grapes with him in the first place?), pops one in his mouth, then spits out the seeds which splat onto the car window. I guess he thought it was rolled down? Who spits out grape seeds? Is this a thing? Also, he just sheepishly rolls down the window (without cleaning the nasty grape spit!) and continues to eat the grapes and spit the seeds out of the open window. If I had been driving that car, I would slam on my break so fast and tell him to "get the f*ck outta my car!" That would drive me bat-sh*t crazy! They've only known each other for less than two minutes and already I would want to murder him. 

He asks her why she's going to New York an she replies she's going to journalism school to become a reporter (and even though later we do learn that she did become a reporter for a newspaper (or maybe it was a TV program; I'm not really sure...or perhaps it was a magazine) called The News, nothing else about her career is ever mentioned in the movie). He replies with, "So you can write things that happen to other people" and says it like it's a bad thing. What does he care if she wants to become a journalist and what's so bad about that? He then proceeds to tell her (and keep in mind they've probably only known each other for an hour when he says this), "Suppose nothing happens to you. Suppose you live there your whole life and nothing happens, you never meet anybody, you never become anything and finally you die one of those New York deaths." Wha-what? 

Sally comments that Amanda told her he had a "dark side" and he agrees, telling her he reads the last page of whatever book he's reading just in case he dies before he's done reading it. I don't know; I don't think that means you have a dark side. I think it just means if the book is worth continuing to read! They get into this (one-sided) stupid competition about who thinks about death the most. He tells her he "spends hours, days thinking about it and that for her, it's probably just a "fleeting thought that drifts in and out of the transom of [her] mind." 

So at this point, I'm fine with Sally and I feel sorry for her having to deal with Harry (at one point he accuses her of never having "great sex" and I firmly believe Sally would be justified in smacking the sh*t out of him), but then they stop at a diner for dinner and this is what she orders: 

"I'd like the chef's salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side. And the apple pie a la mode. But I'd like the pie heated and I don't want the ice cream on the top, I want it on the side. And I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream just whipped cream, but only if it's real, if it's out of a can, then nothing."

Oh my God. I can't even. If I was the waitress, I would have told Sally to f*ck off. Let's dissect her order, shall we? I have no problem with her asking for the oil and vinegar on the side for her salad. That is very reasonable. It's the dessert order that is insane and over the top. Having the pie heated doesn't seem like an odd request; in fact, don't most places heat up pie? I don't know; I guess I haven't ordered pie that much to really know. But ordering strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla? What kind of monster is eating apple pie with strawberry ice cream? That is some whack thinking right there. If I were the waitress, I would tell her we don't have strawberry ice cream and I would have told her you can have vanilla ice cream of whipped cream or just plain. None of this fancy special stuff. If you want this so bad, go buy an apple pie at the store with strawberry ice cream. Ugh, I hate people who order like this...it's like just order what's on the menu and shut the f*ck up. Apparently this is how Nora Ephron ordered so she wrote from experience. I'll tell you what, I feel sorry for all the people who have ever had to take her order at restaurants! Yeah, the whole thing just comes off very privileged. 

While Sally is figuring out the tip, Harry stares at her and tells her, "You're a very attractive person" and how Amanda never said how attractive she was. (Why would she? What does that have to do with anything?) Sally thinks he is coming on to her (which I don't think is unreasonable for her to think) and reminds him that Amanda is her friend and he's dating Amanda. Harry claims he wasn't coming on to her and asks, "Can't a man say a woman is attractive without it being a come on?" Oh, boy, this guy is gonna find himself in a lot of sexual harassment lawsuits! I can just see him using that line to get out of them, too. He tells her he takes back the comment, but she says he can't do that "because it's already out there" and to "just let it lie." He asks her if she wants to spend the night at a motel (he is half-joking), then makes a joke about how he didn't "let it lie." She firmly tells him, "We are just going to be friends, okay?" The way Harry is acting, I almost forgive Sally for her obnoxious ordering. Almost. 

Harry tells her that they can never be friends. He has a theory that men and women can't be friends "because the sex part always gets in the way." Sally tells him she has "a number of men friends and there is no sex involved." He tells her, without ever having met any of these male friends of hers, that they all want to have sex with her and that "no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive" because he just wants to have sex with her. Sally replies, "So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive." Harry replies that they "pretty much wanna nail them, too" which made me laugh but also made me wonder if they threw that line in so they wouldn't offend any "non-attractive" women watching this. I don't know; just a theory. 

She drops him off at Washington Square Park and they say good-bye with a handshake and tell each other to have a nice life. This is such a weird place to drop someone off. Harry walks toward the park with his bags like he's going to camp out there. Doesn't he have an apartment he's staying at that she could have dropped him off in front of? 

This version of Harry is the worst Harry we see and it's pretty clear why Sally doesn't like him. Honestly, I'm surprised she even offered to be friends with him, although maybe she's just saying that and doesn't really mean it, not knowing she will later run into him in a few years. 

And that time comes five years later when we see Sally at an airport, kissing her boyfriend, Joe. Fun fact: Joe is played by Steven Ford who is the son of Gerald Ford. At first I was like, if they're going to cast an ex-POTUS's son as the love interest for Sally, why not JFK Jr? But then I looked up Steven Ford and apparently he is an actor (or was; he hasn't been in anything since 2007) and has had bit parts in a handful of movies (some I've even heard of!) 

As they're kissing, Harry walks past, sees them, and backtracks his steps. It turns out he knows Joe as they used to live in the same building (I feel like the chances of that are very astronomical). I really thought it was Sally that he had recognized, but it's Joe who he says hello to. It's also super weird that he's waiting patiently for this couple to stop making out before he says anything. I don't know what is more weird: a couple making out in the middle of a very public place (a quick kiss is fine, but full on making out in the airport? C'mon, people.) or someone waiting for a couple to stop making out. As soon as Joe says his name (he says something like, "Hey, Harry Burns, how are you doing?" which is really weird because who ever calls someone by their first and last name like that?), she immediately knows who he is and is trying to avoid eye contact. 

So I'm a little confused as to whether Harry had recognized Sally or not. When Joe introduces him to Sally, he seems to recognize her name, but doesn't say anything about knowing her. But then, as soon as Harry leaves to catch his plane, Sally says to Joe, "Thank God he couldn't place me. I drove from college to New York with him five years ago and it was the longest night of my life." This is such a weird line to have in the movie. As an audience, we know this because it just happened minutes ago in the movie! I guess it's for the benefit for Joe to ask what happened and for her to tell him Harry made a pass at her...I don't know. Or maybe it's a reason for Joe to tell Sally that he loves her, seemingly for the first time. (They've only been together for a month). Also, the airport is a weird place to say that for the first time. 

So guess who else is on the plane that Harry boarded? That's right, it's Sally and she's sitting in the row right in front of Harry. Here's her eye-rolling drink order:

"Here's what I want. Regular tomato juice. Fill it up about three quarters then add a splash of Bloody Mary mix, just a splash and a little piece of lime, but on the side."

Arrgh. Does she not realize there are probably over 100 people on this flight that also want drinks? Just order a simple drink and stop being so extra extra. The movie implies that this is when Harry recognizes Sally (because of her obnoxious ordering) because he leans over and asks if they knew each other at the University of Chicago. Now, I could have sworn he recognized her when Joe introduced him to her, but maybe he just thought he recognized her name and this is when he definitely remembers her, who knows. But he must not have remembered her that well because he asks her if they ever slept together (without actually saying it, but he implies it). You think he would remember sleeping with an attractive woman like Sally if he did. How can he not remember making the big spiel about men and women not being able to be friends because sex gets in the way...surely he remembers that he did not sleep with her! 

The guy sitting next to Sally offers to switch places with Harry so the two of them can catch up. This is when we learn that Sally has become a journalist and this is pretty much the only scene in the movie that mentions her job. (I must admit I did laugh when he says to her, "You were gonna be a gymnast" (LOL, what?) and she replies, "A journalist.", and he says, "Right. That's what I said."). In fairness, this is also the only scene we really learn about Harry's job; he works with a small firm that does political consulting. (Yawn!)  

Harry asks about Joe and wants to know if they're getting married (kinda presumptuous to assume just because somebody is a couple they're going to get married), but she tells him they've only known each other for a month and neither are looking to get married at the moment. To her surprise, Harry tells her he's getting married. She tells him it's optimistic of him and he replies, "You get to a certain point where you get tired of the whole-life-as-a-single-guy thing." (And by the way, he's not getting married to Amanda, his college girlfriend; it turns out neither of them still keep in touch with her). 

When they land (not even sure where they are), Harry asks her to have dinner with him, just as friends. When she says she thought men and women can't be friends, he tells her, "They can't be friends unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can." (It feels like he's just making up the rules as the movie goes along). Sally tells him goodbye and they don't have dinner. 

Another five years goes by and now it's 1987 so we're very close to the movie's "present day" 1989. Sally is having lunch with two of her girlfriends, Marie (Carrie Fisher) and someone else whose name I don't remember because she's really not that important. Marie has been seeing a married man for two years and lamenting about how he's never going to leave his wife. Nonchalantly, Sally tells them that she and Joe broke up three days ago. Her friends are shocked since they were together for five years and seemed to have this perfect relationship. Marie's kind of a terrible friend because she asks, "Joe's available?" like she's ready to pounce. Both of her friends can't believe she waited three days to tell them about this, but Sally tells them she's not upset about it; that they've "been growing apart for quite awhile." Marie takes that as a sign that she's "ready" and proceeds to pull out a ROLODEX (I am not joking) that has the names and numbers of single men she knows. I understand this is 1989 and smart phones are not a thing yet, but they had those little black books where people wrote down numbers and addresses. A small leather book seems way more plausible for a woman to carry around in her purse than a clunky freakin' rolodex! Sally tells her even though she's over Joe, she's not ready to date yet. (Yeah, it's only been three days; give the woman some room to breathe!) Marie tells her not to wait too long or the man she's meant to be with could be scooped up by another woman. 

We transition over to Harry who's at a baseball game with his friend, Jess (Bruno Kirby) and telling him that his wife recently left him and he found out she's in love with someone else and she moved in with that guy. A few days later, Sally and Marie are in a bookshop where Harry also happens to be and Marie notices that he keeps glancing at Sally and tells her some guy is checking her out. Sally recognizes him instantly and tells Marie he's obnoxious and that he probably doesn't even remember her anyway and that's when he comes over and says her name so he obviously does remember her. This scene is basically here to have them reunite and for Harry to find out that Sally broke up with Joe and for Sally to find out that Harry's getting a divorce.

They go out to dinner (as friends, of course) and Sally tells him when she and Joe first started dating, they wanted the same thing: to live together, but not get married because "every time anyone [they] knew got married, it ruined the relationship." But that's not true, it seems the real culprit was that having children is what seemed to ruin their friends' relationships. She talks about how they all have kids and can never have sex because they're too exhausted to have it. Okay, two things:

1. You don't need to be married to have kids and you don't have to have kids if you're married. The two do not go hand in hand.

2. It seems like sex is the number one priority for Sally in a relationship. Like, if you don't want to have kids, that's fine, but not wanting them because you'll never be able to have sex seems odds. 

Sally realized that even though they don't have kids, they aren't very spontaneous when they could be. They have the luxury to be able to go anywhere they want without worrying about kids. She then realized she DID want to get married and have kids and when she had a talk with him about it, he said he didn't want those things, so they decided it was over. She tells him she's fine about the decision and that she's over him, a statement she will keep reiterating throughout the movie.

Around this time, Harry and Sally become friends (and they're both single!) We hear a phone conversation between the two of them while we see a montage of them doing things by themselves or having dinner together. Harry talks about how he misses his ex and Sally says she doesn't miss hers at all (see, again, we get another example of this...makes me wonder if this is going to be a big factor later on in there movie...hmmm!). 

They're both in their own beds, on the phone with each other as they're watching the end of Casablanca and Harry comments how Ingrid Bergman is "low maintenance" and goes on to say, "There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance." It's a very generalized, sexist statement, but in a way, he is right. He's just treading in some dangerous territory with it, especially when Sally asks which kind she is. Because she is his friend, he replies with the truth (I don't think he tells her this if they are dating!): "You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance, but you think you're low maintenance." Ha! He is so right. Of course, Sally disagrees. He mocks her ordering habits and says "on the side" is a very big thing. Personally, I don't have a problem with Sally ordering things "on the side"; it's just the minute stupid nitpick-y details of her ordering that really grates on me. Her very privileged response is, "Well, I just want it the way I want it." Ugh, shut up. Or go to Burger King and "have it your way." (Is that even still their slogan?) They continue to watch the movie and Harry remarks that, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" as the best last line of a movie. 

Later, Harry asks her to go to the movies, but she tells him she has a date. She didn't want to tell him about it because she "felt strange about it" since they've "been spending so much time together" (this makes no sense) and tells him that he should "get out there too", but he claims he's not ready. 

However, it turns out he did go on a date because in the next scene we see Harry and Sally together, they are telling each other about their first dates after splitting with their exes. They are in Sally's ridiculously huge apartment unrolling a Persian rug that is the size of an Olympic swimming pool (seriously, how does she afford this on a journalist's salary, especially when she's never at work??) and she tells him that after she and her date finished dinner, the guy reached over, pulled a hair out of her head and began flossing!? What the actual f*ck? That seems like something a serial killer would do. This scenario seems a little far-fetched; I feel like they could have come up with something a little more realistic, but still make the guy look like a loser, like maybe he conveniently left his wallet at home and made Sally pay or even have him pay and maybe have him leave a terrible tip. 

Harry says he had a "massive anxiety attack" because he found out his date went to Michigan State and it reminded him of him ex, even though she went to Northwestern and justifies it by saying, "They're both Big Ten schools." His anxiety attack must not have been as big a deal as he thought, because he admits to Sally that he slept with his date. I can't imagine any woman sleeping with someone on the first date if her date is freaking out over something stupid like where they went to school. I did wonder if he was lying to Sally but we never get any confirmation about it. 

Then we get the famous scene in the deli that everyone knows even if they've never seen the movie. In a scene previous to this, Harry was telling Jess how he can talk to Sally about the women he's dating and get a female perspective on things. At the deli with Sally, she tells him, "most women at one time or another have faked it" and he is very sure that's never happened with him. Sally asks, "How do you know?" and he replies, "Because I know" which isn't answering her question at all. That's when she fakes an orgasm right there at the booth in the middle of the deli with a bunch of people just staring at her like she's crazy. I do have a hard time believing somebody like Sally, who is more on the conservative side, would do that in a very public place, but at the same time, she loves to prove Harry wrong and has a smug look on her face when Harry realizes how easy it is for a woman to fake one. Then, of course, we have the line of the movie, delivered by Rob Reiner's mom as one of the customers in the deli, "I'll have what she's having." 

It's soon New Year's Eve and since neither of them have date, they attend a party together as friends. We see a little spark as they're dancing (as each one faces the camera, we see a look of forlorn longing on their faces). When the countdown begins, they go outside to get some fresh air and they watch as all the couples are kissing each other and they just look at each other, then give a peck on the lips and hug each other. It's a nice, friendly moment. They both agree that if they're both single at this time next year, they'll be each other's date for whatever New Year's party they'll attend. Well, a lot can certainly happen in one year! 

Sally wants to set up her best girl friend, Marie (remember her? She's the one seeing a married man) with her best guy friend, Harry. Likewise, Harry wants to set up Sally with his friend, Jess. I can sort of understand why Sally wants to set up her two friends: Marie did see Harry in the bookstore that one day (and was briefly introduced to him) and did admit to Sally she thought he was cute, plus Sally wants her to stop seeing a married man, especially one that's never going to leave his wife. The Sally and Jess pairing doesn't make any sense and seems to be done because they're both single. 

The four of them all go out on a double date which seems like a terrible idea. Who goes out on a double date for their first date? I don't know, maybe that's more common than I think. The only reason they go on a double date is to serve the plot of the movie. 

They're eating dinner at a restaurant and the couples are sitting next to each other, talking to each other. You can tell it's not going well for either of them as they have nothing in common. Everyone looks bored and annoyed to be there. Sally tells Marie and Harry that they're both from New Jersey and they're interested in that fact for two seconds, and then it doesn't go anywhere. 

Right before they order, Jess says, "I think restaurants have become too important" (what does that even mean?) and Marie agrees and says she read a line she loved in a magazine, "Restaurants are to people in the '80s what theater was to people in the '60s." This is the most pretentious thing I've ever heard (okay, not really, but pretty close). Jess (who is a writer) tells her he wrote that line in New York Magazine and there's an instant connection between him and Marie. Harry sees this and interjects that Sally also wrote for them. (I suppose that's one reason why Harry thought Sally and Jess would connect; they're both writers). I laughed when Jess looks at Sally for one second, then turns back to Marie and they continue their conversation. 

After dinner, as they're walking home, Marie takes Sally aside and asks her if she had any intentions of going out with Jess and tells her she likes him. Meanwhile, Jess is having the same conversation with Harry about Marie. In the end, Jess and Marie take a cab home together. I kind of love that they end up getting together and threw a wrench in Harry and Sally's plans. 

It goes so well for Jess and Marie that they get engaged four months later (that seems awfully quick!). Harry and Sally are at Sharper Image trying to find a wedding gift. Okay, seriously, who the hell registers at freakin' Sharper Image? Crate and Barrel? Sure. Williams-Sonoma? Of course. Pottery Barn? Your basic wedding registry store. Look, I understand this is the '80s when Sharper Image was a big thing and they do have a lot of fun things, but nothing you really need. I remember going into their stores at the mall when I was a kid and loving it. But, really, they just sell a bunch of crap. You're lucky if you get a year's use out of their products. A few years back I ordered a clock radio with different ambient noises (I need some kind of background noise when I'm sleeping...ironically, dead silence keeps me awake!) and that thing lasted a year before it went to sh*t. Now I have an Alexa that serves the purpose of an alarm clock and plays any ambient noise I wish (I'm pretty boring though, I usually just go for white noise). Anyway, while they're there, they run into Harry's ex-wife, Helen (this is the first time we see her) and her new beau. After they exchange some awkward polite banter,  Harry says to Sally, "She looked really weird, didn't she?" and Sally replies, "I've never seen her before." That exchange made me chuckle. Like Sally, I had never seen her before either, but I have to agree with Harry. She has A LOT of hair. That's the only thing I could think of when I saw her: just SO MUCH hair.

When Harry and Sally are over at Jess and Marie's new place, Harry is still reeling from seeing his ex. He tells them right now everything is great and everyone's in love, but "sooner or later they're gonna be screaming at each other" over who's gonna get what in their inevitable divorce. Yikes! He storms outside and Sally follows him and tells him, "You're gonna have to try to find a way of not expressing every feeling that you have every moment that you have them. There are times and places for things." Heh, I can't believe this came from a woman who faked an orgasm in a public place. 

Harry is annoyed that she is giving him advice because nothing bothers her and she never gets upset about anything. He gives the example of her never getting upset over Joe (you know, if you made a drinking game out of this movie, you could drink every time it's pointed out how Sally is "fine" with her breakup with Joe). They get into a spat, but then Harry apologizes and they hug and they're friends again. 

Some time goes by and both Harry and Sally are dating (different people, not each other). They have both brought their dates to Jess and Marie's place to play Pictionary. We see Sally and her date kiss as Harry looks at them sadly; we see Harry and his date kiss as Sally looks at them sadly. It's almost like the movie is trying to tell us something! Both Harry and Sally gossip about each other's dates to their same-sex friends. Harry asks Jess if he thinks Sally's date seems "a little stuffy" to him and Sally comments to Marie that she thinks Harry's date is a "little young" for him. While talking with Jess, Harry admits that she is young. He tells him he asked her where she was when Kennedy got shot and she thought he meant Ted Kennedy. I did some quick arithmetic in my head and Harry would have been around seven when JFK was assassinated. I suppose a seven-year-old could be old enough to remember a national tragedy like that. Though it is weird for him to ask her that since if she is younger (not sure how much younger), then she probably wasn't born yet. That would be like me asking a teenager where they were when 9/11 happened. 

Okay, remember how Sally keeps reiterating to Harry how she's fine with having broke up with Joe and she's over him and all that? Well, all that has been building up for the scene we get when Harry gets a call in the evening from a very upset Sally. She tells him that Joe is getting married and asks Harry if he can come over, which he does. She tells him that Joe had called her earlier that day and asked her how she was, then told her he was getting married to a paralegal who works in his office. She tells Harry, "All this time I've been saying that he didn't wanna get married, but the truth is he didn't wanna marry me." I do feel for Sally in this moment because that has to be painful that your ex tells you he doesn't want to get married, but ends up engaged to somebody else (even those Joe seemed very bland and boring, so she was most definitely better off without him!) 

She starts named her negative qualities, almost to justify why Joe wouldn't want to marry her, but Harry spins them in a positive way. When she says, "I'm difficult", Harry tells her, "You're challenging." When she says, "I'm too structured and I'm completely closed off", Harry adds, "But in a good way." Then she starts crying (again) and exclaims she's gonna be forty "someday". As Harry tells her, she still has eight years to go. Eh, I'm not a big fan of movies that implicate if you're a woman and not married by a certain age, your life is pretty much worthless and you should just kill yourself, but only if you're a woman! It seems like Harry got married because it was just convenient for him and nothing to do with the fact that society would shame him if he didn't get married by a certain time. 

Harry comforts Sally by hugging her and that turns into them making out which turns into them sleeping together. After the act, their reactions are opposite of what you would expect. Sally is happy and smiling while Harry looks like he's just made a huge mistake. Sally gets up to get some water and when she returns, she cuddles close to him and asks with a smile, "Do you wanna go to sleep?" Clearly she is ready for another round. Harry says, "Okay" and a hurt Sally slides over to her side of the bed. To be fair to Harry, I think he knows that Sally is vulnerable and this is not the best time for her to have sex after hearing her ex is with someone else. He probably thinks he is a coping mechanism for her to get over Joe. 

The next morning, Sally wakes up to see Harry getting dressed and asks where he's going. He tells her he needs to go to work (she couldn't figure that out?), but wants to take her out to dinner later if she's free and then he goes.

The next scene is a great scene of our four main characters having a phone conversation all at the same time. Marie and Jess, both sleeping in their bed, are woken up by their ringing phones. Yes, phones. They each have a phone on their bedside table (and remember, this is the late '80s so it's those huge honking' phones with a cord and receiver; they're not using cell phones!) so that means they both have their own phone line. Um, please tell me, why do you need TWO phones in the bedroom? That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Now if one of them had a phone in a study with their own private line for work (I have no idea what Marie does), then yes, I could get behind that. Yeah, yeah, I know this is done solely for the scene, but this would have made so much more sense in a more modern version where both couples had cell phones laying on their bedside table. 

So Marie's phone rings first and it's Sally, then seconds later, Jess's phone rings and it's Harry. (Both phones sound alike when they ring, so how do they even tell which phone it is?) Sally is calling from her bed and Harry is calling from a payphone. They both tell their friends about what happened and Jess and Marie think it's great until their friends tell them after it was over, they felt awkward and embarrassed. Marie gives Sally some good advice: "You should never go to bed with anyone when you find out your last boyfriend is getting married." 

Both Sally and Harry, who can hear their friends' significant others, also talking, ask if they're also on the phone, but they just reply it's the TV. At the same time, Jess and Marie asks their friends, "Do you wanna come over for breakfast?", then look at each other with uh-oh faces when they realize they said the same thing, but luckily both Harry and Sally decline their friends' invitations. 

When Harry takes Sally out to dinner that night, we get a voiceover from him telling us he hopes Sally realizes last night was a mistake, but he wants her to say it first and we get a voiceover from Sally telling us she hopes she gets to say it first. She does and Harry replies, "I am so relieved that you think so too." 

We see Sally with Marie at her fitting for a wedding dress. This dress is so ugly. It has a weird bodice that's a different shade of white than the rest of the dress. I always feel like when a movie features a wedding dress, nine times out of ten, I hate the dang thing! Probably the best wedding dress I've seen in a movie is the one from Crazy Rich Asians. Sally tells Marie she looks beautiful and she seems sincere. I would be a terrible person to take wedding dress shopping. Not that I would tell someone I hated their dress (even if I did) because I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings if they did like the dress. But if they said they didn't like it first, then I would definitely agree with them! Sally asks her if Harry's bringing anyone to the wedding or if he's seeing anyone, but he's not. 

At the wedding, Sally and Harry, as the Maid of Honor and Best Man, appear to be the only people in the wedding party. Meg Ryan's curls are perfection in this scene. Here's a controversial opinion (IDK, maybe it's not as controversial as I might think): not a big fan of when Meg got her pixie cut. Will probably discuss this more in an upcoming review, *hint hint*. Sally and Harry are looking at each other while the vows are being read. 

During the wedding party, they get into an argument about what happened three weeks ago. She accuses him of acting like what happened didn't mean anything. He asks her, "Why does it have to mean everything?" He says they both agreed it was a mistake and tells her, "I did not go over there that night to make love to you. That is not why I went there." He says that she was asking him to hold her longer and what was he supposed to do? Sally takes this as he was taking pity on her. They are in the kitchen where all the food is being prepared as they're having their argument. I notice this is a troupe used many times in movies...characters finding their way into a kitchen while food is being prepared. There's no way the head chef or anyone working back there would allow two random people to come in and start arguing...they would tell them to get out of there. But we need our two main characters to be out of the area where the reception is because they need to enter it again as Jess and Marie are holding up their champagne glasses, ready to make a toast. Jess says, "I'd like to propose a toast to Harry and Sally. If Marie or I had found either of them remotely attractive, we would not be here today." While this is funny, I don't think it's true. Marie did tell Sally she thought Harry was cute when she first spots him in the bookshop (and thought he was checking out Sally) and it seems that Jess and Sally didn't have anything in common, I never got the impression that he wasn't attracted to her.

This was one of the rare late fall weddings because we see a Christmas montage of Sally carrying a Christmas tree home and Harry keeps calling her, trying to speak and apologize to her, but she won't answer the phone and just screens her calls. Finally, she does answer and he says he's sorry and asks her what she's doing for New Year's and if she's going to Tyler's party (who the heck is Tyler?). He tells her he doesn't have a date and reminds her about the deal they made last year that they would be each other's date if they were both still single, but Sally shuts him down and basically says she's not going with him. 

While Sally is at the New Year's party (I guess this is Tyler's party...seriously, who is Tyler and when did we meet him during the movie?) with some random guy (probably set up by Jess and Marie who are also at the party), she pretty much tells Marie that she doesn't want to be there. While this is going on, we see Harry walking outside, just moping around. He is obviously sad that he has lost Sally as a friend and something potentially more. But then he seems to get an epiphany and starts running toward the building where the New Year's party is being held. This is just like many movies where one half of a romantic couple will run to the airport to find their other half to proclaim their love. 

When Sally, wearing her strapless party dress, is about to leave, Harry comes in, wearing his street clothes. He tells her he's been doing a lot of thinking and that he loves her and tells her what he loves about her: "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts." (Of course the camera cuts to Sally with said crinkle above her nose as he's talking). "I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I wanna talk to before I go to sleep at night. I came here tonight because when you realize you wanna spend the rest of your life with somebody you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

Aww, that's sweet. You know he came up with that speech as he was moping around previously. Or maybe he just came up with it on the fly; that would be very impressive. I liked the examples he gave for reasons he loves her. They were really cute and funny, although too bad we never get an example of her being cold when it's seventy degrees. By the way, is Sally from Florida or something? Only people from warm weather places get "cold" when it's seventy degrees. That is hilarious. For me, it has to be in the lower 50s when I truly get cold (and even lower than that for me to be freezing). I am one of those people who would much rather be cold than hot because it's so much easier to get warmed up by putting on a sweater, but when you're sweating and dying from the heat, it's not fun. I attribute this to my Norwegian heritage, my people are used to the cold, heh. Plus I like winter clothes better than summer clothes. Of course, I absolutely hate snow...I mean, it's fine as long as I don't have to drive in it. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I just thought it was funny that Sally gets cold when it's seventy degrees! 

Sally replies, "That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you! And I hate you, Harry." Of course, she doesn't really hate Harry. It's more like he drives her crazy at times. By this time the countdown has started and when they kiss as a new couple, they are ringing in the New Year. 

So throughout the movie, short clips of senior citizen couples talking about how they met have been peppered in. At first, I thought they were real couples telling their stories, but then thought they were way too polished. I found out while the "couples" were actors, they were taken from real stories of how elderly couples met when they were younger. The movie ends with a confessional from Harry and Sally. It's months later and we find out they've gotten married. Harry says the first time they met, they hated each other, but Sally corrects him and says she hated him (ha!) The second time they met, Sally says Harry didn't remember her, but Harry says he didn't forget (I'm with him...I think he knew it was her the entire time). And the third time they reconnected, they became friends and were friends for a long time until they weren't and fell in love and got married. 

The last line of the movie calls back to Harry making fun of her for "on the side" being a thing for her because she's describing the wedding cake they had and says they served the rich chocolate sauce "on the side." That was funny; that made me laugh. 

I do have to wonder if it would have been better if Harry and Sally had just remained friends. After all, it's proving Harry's stance about men and women not being able to be friends because sex gets in the way. Or romance. Or both. But I guess since the entire movie is about both of them, the audience is (probably) rooting for them to get together so I get why they did it. 

You've Got Mail

Sleepless in Seattle

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Rosie O'Donnell, Rita Wilson, Victor Garber, Rob Reiner, Gaby Hoffmann

Released: June 25, 1993

Oscar nominations: 

Best Original Screenplay - Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, and Jeff Arch (lost to Jane Campion for The Piano) 

Best Song - Marc Shaiman and Ramsay McLean for "A Wink and a Smile" (lost to "Streets of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen for Philadelphia)

The only thing I remembered about this movie is the end where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet at the Empire State Building. Ironically, for a movie called Sleepless in Seattle, I only remember the part that took place in New York. I was also trying to remember if Meg Ryan's character lived in Seattle (I knew Tom Hanks's character did), but then I realized that if they both lived in the same city, it wouldn't make any sense for them to meet in New York! 

This movie starts in Chicago at the funeral of the wife of Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks). So right off the bat they want you to know he is now single. He decides he needs a change of scenery so he decides to move to Seattle with his eight-year-old son, Jonah. They don't really specify why he chooses to move to Seattle. He doesn't have any family there or likes the rain or says he got a job there, just seemed to randomly pick it. He and his son move into a house boat where he keeps a roll up map of the United State in the kitchen which he uses to teach his son geography. He gets a job as an architect and makes a friend named Jay (Rob Reiner) who teaches him about dating in the '90s. 

All the way on the other side of the country we meet Annie Reed (Meg Ryan), who lives in Baltimore and is engaged to Walter (Bill Pullman), a man the audience isn't supposed to like because he makes dopey jokes and is allergic to everything so he's always sneezing and blowing his nose. Yeah, not the most attractive, but despite his flaws he seems like a relatively nice guy. It's Christmas Eve and not only is Annie bringing Walter to meet her parents and family for the first time ever, but she also announces they're getting married. Does anyone else find this a bit odd that the family hadn't even met this guy while they were dating? We learn that Annie and Walter met at a sandwich shop when they both ordered a tomato and lettuce sandwich (why not just order a salad with a slice of bread?) and one of them had it on white and the other had it on wheat, but their orders got mixed up. Annie's mom gets out the wedding dress that her mom wore at her wedding because Annie wants to wear it and I'm thinking, girl, really? You really want to wear this very old fashioned and matronly dress to your wedding? Not only does it have long sleeves and a neckline that could almost be a turtleneck, but it looks like the top is a different material from the skirt. This moment is played as very sincere so it's not like we're supposed to laugh and feel bad for Annie in this hideous dress, but man, that dress is awful! Also, if I'm getting married, I want to wear my own NEW dress, I don't want to wear my mom's or grandmother's wedding dress. If they have a piece of jewelry for me, that's fine, but not the actual dress. I feel like this is a big troupe in movies, but it makes me wonder if this thing happens a lot in real life. 

After dinner, Annie and Walter leave and for some reason they're driving separate cars. There's really no reason for this except that the movie wants Annie to be listening to a Delilah-esque radio show called "You and Your Emotions" alone. The host is a woman named Dr. Marsha Fieldstone and the topic tonight is "Wishes and Dreams". Annie gets sucked into the show when Jonah calls in from Seattle and tells the host his wish is for his dad to have a new wife. He explains that his mom died and his dad has been very sad and hasn't been sleeping well which gives him the moniker "Sleepless in Seattle" (and the title of this movie, would you look at that!) Dr. Marsha Fieldstone wants to talk to Jonah's dad so he gets him. I'm honestly surprised that Sam didn't hang up the phone because that's what I would have done. Then I would have a very long talk with my child about calling national radio shows and airing my personal business for the whole country to hear! But Sam talks to her and he catches the attention of many women (including Annie) across the country as he talks about how in love he was with his wife, Maggie. He says when he took her hand to help her out of the car, "It was like coming home; only to no home I'd ever know." He also says it was like "magic" and Annie says that word at the same time, so this is supposed to tell the audience that Annie and Sam are meant to be. We'll see other instances of them where they're supposed to be meant for each other sprinkled in the movie. One example is when we see Annie peeling an apple with a knife in one long strip (I would be too scared to do that in fear that I would cut myself!) and in a later scene Sam will tell Jonah that his mother could "peel an apple in one long, curly strip."

The story goes viral (or whatever the equivalent of viral was in 1993) and Sam starts getting stacks of letters from admirers around the country. Apparently two thousand women have asked for his number. In the grand scheme, of things, 2000 is really just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the female population of the United Sates between 25-45 (my guess of the age range of the women who were writing him) in 1993, but on the other hand, 2000 letters is a lot for one guy to get. 

Jonah tells his dad that he gave out his address (um, that seems extremely dangerous...they could have some unstable woman stalking them (and in a way, they kinda do!)) and Sam (rightfully) asks, "What possessed you to give them our address?" Jonah says they called and asked for it. Sam asks how did they get their number and Jonah replies that you have to give your number to the radio show or they won't let you on the air. Okay, I need to unpack a few things here because I am a bit confused and if I missed something and somebody could clear this up for me, that would be great! I've never called in to a radio show so I don't know if you have to give them your number, but I guess it makes sense if your call becomes disconnected, or maybe it was just a plot device for this movie. I am shocked that the radio show gave out his number when women called asking for it. I feel like there's some law against that? Like a privacy law? I feel like Sam could have a lawsuit against this radio show and sue them for millions. Also, since these women already have his number, why are they calling just to ask for his address (I also find it amazing that Sam never picks up the phone when all these women have called; he must be a workaholic or something); why didn't they just ask to talk to Sam since they already have his number? I don't know; maybe I'm reading too much into this. I feel like there could have been a better way for this to be handled. 

Even though these women know that his name is Sam, all the letters begin with "Dear Sleepless in Seattle". Jonah helps his dad goes though the letters and one of them writes, "You're the most attractive man I've ever laid ears on" to which he rolls his eyes and throws the letter back. Yep, that would be my reaction as well! 

Back in Baltimore, where Annie works as a writer for The Baltimore Sun (presumably she writes fluff pieces) the "Sleepless in Seattle" story is getting a lot of attention. There's this weird line/"joke" where a couple of Annie's male colleagues are telling her that they heard a statistic that it's more likely for a woman to get killed in a terrorist attack than get married over the age of 40. This line was written as a joke (a bad one at that) and wasn't an actual fact, right? Because no way that is correct. I don't know anyone who's ever been killed in a terrorist attack. I know a lot of people who are married and while I don't know how old all of them were they wed, I'm sure there's at least one person who was over 40, so already that statistic is bullish*t. I did a bit of research and found that this was actually a statistic printed in a 1986 issue of Newsweek (and obviously not accurate...where do they even get the data to back that up?) and Nora Ephron was calling out how stupid it was. She probably should have just kept it out of the movie.

Annie and Walter make plans to meet in New York for Valentine's Day because he's going to be in Boston for a few days before the 14th. Annie has a friend named Becky (Rosie O'Donnell) who I think is her editor. Becky is not a fan of Walter and Annie keeps trying to tell her that Walter is a perfectly nice guy but even she has trouble convincing herself of that. Annie decides that she's going to write a letter to Sam and types one up on her typewriter (yes, typewriter; it wasn't even an electric one!) while she and Becky are watching An Affair to Remember. That movie plays a big role in this movie. I didn't even remember the name of it until Rita Wilson's character (who plays Sam's sister...kinda weird that a husband and wife are playing siblings, but I guess it would be way weirder if it were the other way around) mentions it. It seems all the female characters go gaga over this movie which I hated because it was such a stereotype that all women love mushy romantic movies. I've never seen An Affair to Remember, but from the few scenes they show of it here, it does not look like my cup of tea. It just looks boring. In another scene we'll see Sam's sister explaining the plot of the movie to Sam and her husband (Victor Garber) and ends up CRYING while she's talking about it. It's a great performance from Rita Wilson, but honestly, who has ever cried while explaining the plot of a movie? We will also see another scene of Jonah's little girlfriend, Jessica (Gaby Hoffmann) who is watching it and crying, declaring, "This is the best movie I've ever seen!" No, I'm sorry. No way an eight/nine-year-old child is going to say some old time-y romance movie from 1957 is the best movie they've ever seen. Not when Home Alone and Aladdin and The Mighty Ducks are most likely in her video rotation. Also she'll be changing her tune when she goes sees Jurassic Park that summer! I hated the whole An Affair to Remember subplot.

So Annie and Becky are watching the movie and they can both recite all the lines and Annie is swooning over the romance between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Becky says the most meta line of the film: "You don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie." I laughed when Annie reads the start of her letter to Becky: "Dear Sleepless and son, I have never written a letter like this in my life" and Becky replies, "That's what everyone writes at the beginning of letters to strangers." She also asks her, "What about Walter?" and Annie dreamily says, "I would give anything to marry Walter." Okay, so then why are you writing to this man you've never met or seen that lives three thousand miles away? Annie's reasoning is, "What if this man is my destiny and I never meet him?" Sometimes I was very confused about what Annie wanted. There's a scene in An Affair to Remember where the two leads meet at the Empire State Building and Becky tells her to write that she wants to meet him there on Valentine's Day. Annie thinks this is a great idea because she'll already be in New York with Walter that day and she'll be able to squeeze in it. Then she realizes what she just said and crumbles up the letter so at least she had that much sense.

Can we just pause here for a moment and talk about this letter from Sam's perspective. You get this letter from a woman who's asking you to fly all the way from Seattle to New York to meet her at a very crowded touristy spot. Um, I'm sorry, but I'm not paying however much it cost to fly from one end of the country to the other in 1993, plus the cost of admission to go up the ESB. Not to mention that a flight from Seattle to New York is a little over five hours long and I'm guessing that's not counting layovers, though I suppose there's probably continuous flights between both cities, but that's not the point. If I'm Sam, no way I'm flying all the way across the country to meet some random woman; I don't care how much she talks about "fate" and "magic". If she wants to meet me so much, then she should come to Seattle and if she wants to meet at a touristy destination with tons of people around, then meet me at the Space Needle. Or better yet, why not a coffee shop? I'm willing to bet there's at least ten within five minutes of Sam's home! But like I said, Annie tosses the letter to the side and Sam never receives it...or does he...? 

Sam starts dating a woman he works with named Victoria. The audience isn't supposed to like her because she "laughs like a hyena" (Jonah's words) and while she does have an annoying laugh, I found it more annoying that she seemed to find everything that Sam said hilarious funny even though it wasn't, so I guess the movie did a good job of making me think she was annoying. Other than that, she seemed like a perfectly nice woman. I guess since she and Walter are in the way of Annie and Sam finding true love with each other, we're supposed to root against them. Jonah is especially a little brat towards her and she is doing her best to be nice to him. There's a moment when he's spying on them when they come home after a date and are standing outside on the deck. Jonah calls Dr. Marsha Fieldstone's radio show to give her (and the entire country) a blow by blow of what's going on. He then screams bloody murder when he sees them kiss and calls Victoria a "ho". Seriously, kid? Also, if this were my kid, he would be grounded until he went to college. Sam is a pretty chill dad as his kid doesn't seem to have any discipline. I guess his wife took care of that. Becky calls Annie to turn on the radio and once again she gets very invested in the story and wants to know who Sam is kissing. 

Annie pretty much turns into a full on stalker when she tries to get information about Sam under the guise she's wring a piece about call in radio shows and another piece on how people handle bereavement. This gets her Sam's number (why didn't she just call the radio show since they were handing out his number like free candy?) and she calls his number where she gets a message from the machine where she learns his last name. She uses this information to look him up on an extremely archaic computer on an extremely archaic database called Nexus City News Bureau. Under "Enter Your Request", she types, "Find Samuel Baldwin" and gets 216 matches. Three things here: First, there's only 216 Samuel Baldwins in the entire United States of America? That's seems quite low; maybe Baldwin is a rare surname? The only Baldwins I'm aware of are Alec, Billy Stephen, and is there another Baldwin brother? Second, doesn't she already have Sam's address? Wasn't she going to send a letter to him before she decided not to? Wouldn't it just be easier to cross reference him with his address? Am I missing something here? Also, for a newspaper writer, Annie is an extremely SLOW typer. I swear, it takes her 30 seconds just to type "Samuel Baldwin".  She does narrow the search to include Jonah's name and gets four matches. From there, she's able to deduce that her Sam is an architect (so I guess there's that new fact she's learning). She sends a fax to a detective agency in Seattle asking for a background check along with a photo on Sam. Okay. I get the background check. You want to make sure the guy you're stalking isn't some crazy maniac, cuz, god forbid! But why does she need a photo? Remember, this pre-dates social media so she can't just look him up online, but the way she gets the photo is so weird and almost invading on Sam' privacy.

Let me lead into how his photo is obtained....Sam is getting ready to go on a date with Victoria (and this is the same date that ends with both of them on the dock and Jonah screaming when he sees them kissing) and Jonah is opening fan mail for his dad. There's one letter that's addressed to both him and his dad so he opens it and surprise, surprise, it's Annie's letter. Turns out Becky sent it. Jonah reads it and thinks it's the most amazing letter and this Annie woman is the woman for his dad. He wants his dad to read it, but Sam's in a hurry so he only reads part of it. Jonah thinks it's a sign because Annie talks about baseball and declares "Brooks Robinson was the best third baseman ever" and Sam also thinks that. So I had to look up who Brooks Robinson was and he played for the Baltimore Orioles in the '60s. Sam dismisses this and says that everyone think he was great. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that just because they like the same baseball player means they're meant for each other. Also, Annie is from Baltimore so of course she's going to like a ball player that played for her city. They don't give any other examples from the letter of why they're meant to be which means the writers of the movie couldn't think of any legitimate reason why these two are meant for each other aside from the fact that it's Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. So while Sam is having dinner with Victoria at the restaurant, the waiter comes by to tell Sam that he has a phone call. Young people, this is what happened before cell phones. You had to use a pay phone or the restaurant's phone to call someone. Turns out it's Jonah who asks his dad if they can go to New York on Valentine's Day because Annie wants to meet them there. Once again, Sam is pretty chill. He's annoyed that his son called him for basically nothing (like he couldn't wait to ask him this later?) I would have yelled at him for calling me during a date for a non-emergency. So this is when the photo of Sam is taken. A man who is on the second level of the restaurant with an extremely LOUD camera that makes whirring noises as he focuses the lens on his subject, then proceeds to make more LOUD sounds as he clicks the camera several times to snap a few photos. He's totally inconspicuous. Yes, that was sarcasm. 

Annie flies to Seattle because she wants to do a story on radio shows (not specifically Sam's story, but radio shows in general), but let's face it: she's going to Seattle to do some stalking, I mean sleuthing. A huge warning bell that she knows what she's doing is wrong is that she lies to Walter and tells him she's going to Chicago. The funniest part of the movie is when she's on the plane and the woman next to her asks, "Don't you just hate flying?" and Annie replies, Yes, I do. And I just told the most terrible one to the man I'm about to marry. Do you feel that any lie is a betrayal?" The woman just looks at her and says, "I said flying." 

It just so happens that Sam and Jonah are at Sea-Tac to see off Victoria who's going...somewhere for....something. I knew that as people started to stream off from a flight that just got in, that Annie was going to be one of those people, and what do you know, I was right! Shocker, I know! Annie doesn't see him, but Sam notices her and he's instantly attracted to her and starts following her, but quickly loses her in the crowd. Jonah tells him that Jessica believes that he [Sam] knew Annie in another life. He asks who Annie is which is quite ironic since he was just following her. I did laugh when Jonah says he knows this stuff because he's "younger and more pure so he's more in touch with cosmic forces." Of course that is what Jessica told him. 

Annie goes to Sam's address and sees them on a small boat in the water, so she jumps back in her car and watches them as she drives across a bridge and she's literally turning her head back so she's not watching for traffic. Lucky for her, there doesn't seem to be too many cars out wherever she is. She then proceeds to hide behind a small general store as she peeks out and watches the father and son play on the beach. She is being such a creeper! It was at this point that I knew there had to be a trailer cut of this movie as a horror/thriller film and I was right. She even tells Becky, "I watched them play on the beach" when she returns to Baltimore. If that doesn't scream stalker-ish, I don't know what does.

There is a moment when Annie is about to cross a busy street to talk to Sam who's at a parking lot of a marina and right before she has the nerve to do so, a woman who she thinks is Sam's girlfriend comes into view and hugs Sam and Jonah. Turns out it's just Sam's sister, Suzy, who is visiting from Chicago, but Annie doesn't know that. She does get the attention of Sam when a truck honks its horn at her because she standing in the middle of a busy street like an idiot. They lock eyes and have a moment as they say "hello" to each other. Then the next scene is her back in Baltimore telling Becky what happened. She claims she just got back in her car and left. Remember this scene because I'm going to come back to it later.

So the young kids have written a letter to Annie pretending to be Jonah's dad and Annie soon receives the letter. This is when she learns that Becky sent her original letter. The letter reads, "Dear Annie, Thanks for the letter. It was great. You sound neat. We're very excited about meeting you in New York on Valentine's Day and seeing if we're MFEO. See you soon." Ha, I can only imagine how Annie, a writer, felt about receiving such an immature letter from a man she feels a connection to. I have to say that Jessica is ahead of her time. She was into using acronyms way before texting was even a commonplace thing. I don't think I've ever come across MFEO but right away I knew it stood for "made for each other". Sometimes her acronyms didn't work so well, like she she meets Jonah's dad for the first time and snottily says, "H and G", then has to clarify that it stands for "hi and goodbye". Honey, if you have to explain your acronyms, then, IDK, maybe don't use them? 

Jonah is still pestering his dad about going to New York to meet Annie, but Sam is not going to fly across the country to meet some woman he doesn't even know. Understandable. I did get a laugh when he asks Jonah if he saw Fatal Attraction and Jonah replies "You wouldn't let me!" as if he legitimately did want to see it. Glad that Sam put his foot down on that one; not an appropriate movie for an eight-year-old! 

Jonah and Jessica decide to take matters in their own hands. Since Jessica's parents are travel agents, she uses their database to book Jonah a flight to New York on the 14th. Turns out February 14, 1993 was on a Sunday so at least he wasn't missing any school! They pool their money (a little over $100) to pay for the flight, taxi fare, and ticket to go up the Empire State Building. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be enough to pay for all of those even in 1993 currency, so I'm not really sure where they got the rest of the money to pay for all of that. I'm guessing Jessica stole one of her parents' credit cards. She puts down that Jonah is twelve so he won't have to have a chaperone. For some reason, even without Jonah's documentation, she is able to book him a flight which seems a little insane. They really kind of gloss over this. Look, I know that just a few months earlier the same plot line was in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York when Macaulay Culkin flies to New York by himself. But in defense of Kevin McCallister (I can't believe I'm saying this), it wan't his fault that he went to New York. It was an ACCIDENT. He wasn't purposely booking tickets to go to New York and deceiving his father. He just got separated from his dad at the airport and followed some random dude who he thought was his dad onto the wrong plane. And he ran into the woman taking boarding passes and everything got mixed up. It could happen to anyone! Also, the Home Alone movies are almost set in a fantasy world (if you can survive several bricks hitting you on the head, you're not in a realistic movie!) and Kevin McCallister can get away with surviving the streets of New York by himself. Jonah does not process the street smarts that Kevin has and Sleepless in Seattle seems to be set in a more realistic world than Home Alone 2. What I'm saying is that I find this entire subplot extremely absurd. How did Jonah even get to the airport? We just see Jessica buying him a ticket, then the next thing you know he's on a plane Also, NOBODY, NOT ONE SINGLE ADULT, seems to be concerned that this young boy is by himself in New f**king York. I've been to New York. It's a big city. I know, duh. But I cannot imagine being eight-years-old and just getting around by myself. But he's all chipper as he hails a cab to take him to the Empire State Building. The taxi driver asks him what he's going to do there and Jonah replies, "I'm going to meet my new mother." If I were that taxi driver, I would have so many questions, but he just continues to drive. So we see Jonah reach the top and he starts going to every woman in her thirties and asking them if they're Annie. I really feel like this plan was not seen through. First of all, the letters never said a specific TIME to meet. It just said "Valentine's Day". You dummies know there are 24 hours in a day, right? Also, they never specified a certain AREA to meet, just the Empire State Building. Well, I guess they did say at the top, but they still could have been a tad more specific.

Back in Seattle, Sam is ready to go on a little getaway with Victoria. Clarice, the baby-sitter, has just arrived. Sam begins to panic when he can't find Jonah and goes over to Jessica's house where she admits where Jonah is and says he left on the 7:30 flight which is leaving at that moment. Sam books the next flight to New York and he's probably two or three hours behind. 

Meanwhile, in New York, Annie and Walter are having a romantic Valentine's dinner at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Plaza with a view of the Empire State Building that has a huge red heart hologram projected on it. Off screen, Annie tells Walter about Sam and when they come back to them he pretty much tells Annie he needs to go find him. He is taking this break up extremely well which makes me think he wanted to break up with her all along and is relieved that she did it for him. So she decides to mosey on over to the ESB to meet her new future husband and stepson. 

While this is going on, Sam has found Jonah. The ESB is closing so they get on the elevator to go back down. While THAT is going on, Annie is trying to convince the man selling tickets to let her up even though he tells her the building is closed. She mentions An Affair to Remember and the man tells her that's his wife's favorite movie, because of course it is. Because every female in this movie has to love that movie. Just as Sam and Jonah are going down the elevator, Annie is on the other one, getting off at the top. There's clearly no one there, but she asks to look around and finds an abandoned backpack. Now in these days, a bomb squad would be called if such a thing was found at the ESB, but she just goes over and picks it up and finds a teddy bear inside. Of course it belongs to Jonah and he and Sam come back up to retrieve it and that's when everyone is finally united (or re-united?) Annie and Sam take each other's hands and keep looking at each other in this extremely awkward way as they make their way back to the elevator. The movie ends as we assume they're about to start their new life together. 

Did you know that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan share less than two minutes of screen time together in this? That is insane, but it makes sense since they're only together at the end and for a few seconds when she's in Seattle. I mentioned before that I do not like An Affair to Remember being a big plot device of this movie. I also don't like New York being the big set piece for the ending. The movie is called Sleepless in Seattle; maybe utilize the city that's in the title of your movie. If Nora Ephron wanted New York to be a part of this movie, she should have set it there and named it Not Napping in New York; though that doesn't have the same ring to it. 

Remember I told you to remember the scene where Annie and Sam see each across the street in Seattle? Well, when that happens, there's 30 minutes of the movie left. Instead of Annie flying back to Baltimore, this is where I would have had them meet. Get rid of Suzy in this scene and maybe have Sam save Annie from an oncoming truck. Here they can begin their romance and we can have a cute montage of them falling in love in Seattle. Maybe we see them sharing a kiss at the top of the Space Needle! Maybe we see Annie almost getting hit in the head with a flying fish at Pike Place Market! Maybe we see them get caught in the rain without an umbrella! Maybe we see them go to ten different coffee shops in one day! Maybe they hold hands as they walk through Pioneer Square! Maybe they go whale watching! Maybe they take a ferry boat to Roche Harbor for a romantic weekend! Maybe they go fishing off his house boat deck! Maybe we see Sam give geography lessons to Annie too! The possibilities are endless! And we can still have some drama. Maybe Annie admits to Sam that she hired a detective to look into him and he becomes angry. Maybe Annie has to figure out how to break it off with Walter. Maybe they have a fight over where they're going to live, Seattle or Baltimore. I mean, I think the choice is pretty obvious. I've been to both Seattle and Baltimore more than once and as much I liked Baltimore, Seattle is way cooler. Then, at the end of the movie, you could either have them getting engaged or even getting married, take your pick. There. Much better movie! You get rid of all the women sobbing over An Affair to Remember and you get rid of the ridiculous plot line of an eight-year-old child flying to New York by himself. And you have Annie and Sam forming a genuine relationship. I am a genius. You're welcome!