As I’m writing this, October and the spooky Halloween season is coming to an end. With the incoming coldness of winter, I’m seeking films about comfort and love, taking a small break from the bleak and/or disturbing films I often find myself privy to. An absolute favorite of mine is Sleepless in Seattle.

Despite it not being my hometown, I have known every season in Seattle... From the humid swaths of summer, to the cherry-blossomed spring, and the wet, rainy fall. Despite the cold and the rain, winter is my favorite. Maybe it’s the lights strung throughout the city or just general nostalgia for Seahawk games and eating ramen in the University Village, but the northwestern chill always makes me feel at home. Sleepless in Seattle captures the essence of the city, one I long for so deeply as Boston begins to feel less welcoming.

The sentiment of the title Sleepless in Seattle, to me, speaks to loneliness more than love. The two leads don’t meet until late in the film, the majority of the runtime is taken up by intense longing. Sam Baldwin’s (Tom Hanks) admission of loneliness on the radio is what spurs the subsequent events of the film, and Annie Reed (Meg Ryan), a listener of the program, develops feelings for Baldwin despite never having met him. The hope that slowly fills her loneliness is a feeling I constantly yearn for, when the chill of Boston grows stronger and I listen to the Phoebe Bridgers cover of “Day After Tomorrow” repetitively. The special balance Sleepless in Seattle strikes in both romantic optimism and journalistic loneliness is the kind of comfort that only film can provide.

Loneliness in film is such a special thing to me because of how well film as a medium carries the sentiment of it. Loneliness doesn’t just exist in the characters or the plot but in the cold, empty spaces. It’s in the wide shots, the gusts of wind blowing through hair, but also the rewatchable familiarity. There’s always something still there, even in the emptiest of scenes. Despite the sorrow, grief, and pain, there is something hopeful in every shot; that there is love in this emptiness.

But the existence of films about loneliness provides solace, a friendship with the emptiness. Sleepless in Seattle is perfect in how it depicts the weight of pain and loneliness, but the hope and love that always follows. There is always something to love, to focus on, in the midst of brash wintertime chills and the unfriendly cold.

Sleepless in Seattle screens on November 28, 2023, at Kendall Square Cinema.

Until next time,

Karenna

Photograph: IMDb

Bored in Boston