Sleepless In Seattle Critic Reviews

Ephron homes in on what's been missing in movies and in life: ardor, longing and smart talk about the screwed-up notions that pass for love.Read the full review

Not since "Love Story" has there been a movie that so shrewdly and predictably manipulated the emotions for such entertaining effect.Read the full review

There are no surprises in Sleepless, and the audience is ahead of the characters every step of the way. But people seem to like it that way. And, hey, it works like a charm.Read the full review

In Sleepless, though, we're as stuck on these people as the director is, and it puts us in a receptive, forgiving mood. We fall -- and I think a lot of people will fall hard for this movie -- even though we know we shouldn't.Read the full review

We don't make those kind of Lubitsch-Wilder-Capra movies anymore, because it's hard to kid about what goes on behind bedroom walls when the bedroom doors have long since been flung open. So Ephron invents strategies to keep us, teased, outside the boudoir. [25 Jun 1993 Pg.F1]Read the full review

Ephron develops this story with all of the heartfelt sincerity of a 1950s tearjerker (indeed, the movie's characters spend a lot of time watching "An Affair to Remember" and using it as their romantic compass).Read the full review

This is a dreamy, romantic fantasy whose mood falls somewhere between magic and reality.Read the full review

Yet for all the enjoyable flourishes, and there are many, Ephron keeps pausing to remind us, through various contrivances, that this is a movie, making it hard for anyone to really get lost in the story.Read the full review

The movie is so prefab, so plastically aware of being ''corny,'' ''romantic,'' and ''old-fashioned,'' that it feels programmed to make you fall in love with it.Read the full review