Sleepless in Seattle 1993, Rated PG Columbia/Tristar Home Video

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Starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan.

It is after watching movies like this one when I realize that there is a not often thought of down side to being a movie critic; you have to see the bad films, as well as the good. A quick question: what is a guy called when he breaks up with his really nice, wonderful, beautiful, fiancee, on Valentine's Day, after his fiancee has surprised him with courtside season tickets to the Bulls games? A selfish ^!#*() and a dumb@$$. After viewing a scene such as this, the women in the room shake their heads and say things like, "Men..." or will single out any males in the nearby vicinity and personally blame them for the fictional characters actions on screen.

And what if we sexually reverse the situation? What do you have when a woman breaks up with her really nice, wonderful, handsome fiancee, on Valentine's Day, after her fiance has surprised her with an engagement ring with a diamond the size of Vermont? Well, in the hands of Nora Ephron you have a romantic comedy.

I had a problem with this film from the opening scene on. In a romantic comedy, and I use the comedy label for this picture loosely, you want to see a good, if not great, chemistry between the male and female leads. Of course, taking one small step backward, for this to happen you need to have the male and female leads on screen at the same time. This does not happen in Sleepless in Seattle until, at my estimation, some 67 minutes in. For that matter, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan say literally only one word to each other, "hello," before the film's climax.

I'm sure some people out there are going to argue that the point of this one is fate, or destiny, or something, but this movie falls firmly in the "romantic comedy" genre, and strangely enough, hardly ever delivers romance or comedy. I just can't overlook that. When Harry Met Sally..., also written by Ephron, was smart and funny and different, with characters who we wanted to get together. Sleepless in Seattle tries to make viewers hope for the best between a woman who is engaged to another man, whom she has earlier described as "perfect", and a man who is currently dating another woman.

On the box cover of this video, Ryan and Hanks are standing across from one another looking at the skies, away from each other. Take a hint from this and look elsewhere to When Harry Met Sally... for your Valentine's Day movie.