More than thirty years after it was released, Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle remains one of my favorite comfort movies. Every sight and sound from that movie puts me at ease. Now that it's streaming on Netflix, I wanted to share one of my favorite behind-the-scenes facts about the movie for those of you who might be planning to give one of the best rom-coms of all time another watch. The next time you hit play on Sleepless in Seattle, pay attention to the color red and where it appears in the movie.
(Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen Sleepless in Seattle! The ending is discussed.)
Factoring in the various locations (Baltimore, Seattle, Chicago, New York) and varying times of year in which Sleepless in Seattle takes place (Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, etc.), I've always appreciated the details in the movie, however, I admit I didn't notice how limited the use of the color red is until a certain point until I listened to the commentary featuring director Nora Ephron and producer Delia Ephron. It was Nora who explained the use of the color red, crediting production designer Jeffrey Townsend for coming up with the idea of limiting the red we see on screen until Annie (Meg Ryan) and Sam (Tom Hanks) appear on screen together for the first time. Per Ephron:
One of the ideas of our production designer, Jeffrey Townsend, was to very rarely use red in the movie until the two of them came together. And that little group of soccer players is all in red on purpose.
Despite being the stars of the film, Hanks and Ryan don't actually share any physical space in the movie until more than halfway through its runtime, when Annie flies to Seattle to do more "research" on the man who spoke on a talk radio show about his grief over losing his wife. In this scene, Sam sees Annie, though he doesn't know who she is, and she doesn't notice him noticing her. Moments later, Sam and Jonah (Ross Malinger) are trailing after Annie through the airport, which is when we see the soccer players Ephron mentions in the commentary.
Now, to be clear, the color red does appear throughout the first half of the movie. The present-day start of the film happens at Christmas, and I imagine there's no way to avoid red when trying to emphasize that it's the holidays in a movie.
However, as Ephron points out, the color red pops up much more once Annie and Sam's paths have physically crossed. She goes on to point out a few immediate examples (and celebrate the brilliance of DVD commentaries, because YES!):
We used a very controlled palette in the movie, partly because of me because I hate blue. So we don't have any blue in the movie. But see, she's got a red car. It's just, no one will ever notice it, except for these DVDs, what a miracle they are.
The car Annie rents is red, as is the truck that nearly hits Annie when she's standing in the street watching Sam greet his sister (who she mistakenly believes is his girlfriend).
Even at the very end of the movie, when Annie finally gets to meet Sam and his son, Jonah is wearing a bright red coat. It's fitting, considering Jonah was the one who was determined to bring them together, and he finally pulled it off.
I know this isn't the kind of behind-the-scenes movie fact that'll change the way you see the movie, but it's a detail I love, and it's a fun one to keep in mind if, like me, you've seen the movie a million times already. It's something special about the movie to keep an eye out for. Also, the lack of the color blue. Like red, there is plenty of blue in the movie, but maybe not as much as there would've been if Ephron liked the color.
As mentioned, you can now watch Sleepless in Seattle with a Netflix subscription. If it's been a while since you watched it, I definitely recommend.
