Most critics respond warmly to Sleepless in Seattle, with praise clustering around Ephron’s wit, the supporting scenes and the performances of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The favourable reviews find its old-fashioned sentimentality effective, even when the emotional manipulation is plain to see. Several also admire how it uses An Affair to Remember to explore expectations of romance, giving the familiar material something more to do than simply invite tears.
The disagreement centres on whether that charm compensates for the contrivances, with responses ranging from enthusiastic affection to outright boredom. Reservations extend to uneven momentum, excessive sweetness and a romance that can seem more calculated than convincing. The New Yorker finds Hanks appealing but sees little suspense or fresh emotion; the Evening Standard rejects the central pair as bland, making it the sharpest dissent from an otherwise broadly favourable consensus.