Thirty years ago, in the UK, a film debuted that was to leave its mark on the eternal battle of the sexes. The “Sleepless In Seattle” her Nora Ephron it is an ode to cinematic romance, but not in the classical sense of the term.

In “Sleepless In Seattle,” Annie (Meg Ryan) is a young struggling reporter from Baltimore, while Sam (Tom Hanks) is a recently widowed architect who lives with his son in Seattle. When Annie hears Sam talk about his loss on the radio, she falls in love with him. Finally, she writes him a letter, asking him to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building, a move borrowed from her favorite movie, “An Affair To Remember.”

The film has the classic elements of a self-respecting rom com – intense gazes, low lighting and atmospheric music – but at the same time, like its predecessor, it brings to the fore the gender gap. Stereotypical notions of gender are an object with which the director “plays” throughout time. In her previous film, released 4 years earlier and which gave her the coveted fame, the legendary “When Harry met Sally”, these gender biases were made apparent through lines of the protagonists, such as “women are very practical” or “sure, all men think this.’ On the contrary, in “Sleepless In Seattle” it becomes more apparent from how each of the two protagonists behaves, respectively making “women’s and men’s things.

For example, Annie and her bestie, Becky (Rosie O’Donnell), are obsessed with “An Affair to Remember,” watching the movie over and over, wearing pajamas, eating popcorn, and crying with emotion at the plot. “Men never see this movie,” Becky says at one point, highlighting the notion that all women share a common emotional language that matches the surreal romanticism of cinema. Ephron “plays” with the idea that women and men are two different species, who can never enjoy the same things. Through this film, Ephron not only acknowledges, but mocks the “girl movie” stereotype. “In fact, the entire film plays with gender stereotypes and, in a way, subverts them,” argues Stylist.

“An Affair To Remember is kind of a fantasy, whiny, ‘woman’s’ movie, and not necessarily in a good way. She’s kind of hooked on these pathetic female fantasies,” Ephron herself comments on Turner Classic Movies. “In Sleepless we tried to approach a completely different romantic fantasy, one that could be a reality if there is an ideal other half for everyone out there.”

Ephron’s goal was to make it clear that “women’s movies” affect the way women perceive love and romance, and not in a positive way. That is why, in her opinion, she did not follow the classic formula of romance, but made a film that challenged it. According to Stylist’s analysis, the film is less about the love story of the protagonists and more about the idea of ​​romance as a whole, being an intersection between real and cinematic love.

Ending up bringing up what you mock

But did Ephron succeed in her goal, or did she end up creating what she mocked, that is, yet another classic rom com, drawn from the imagination and at an unbridgeable distance from reality. The director used all the classic tricks of lighting, music, shot and even dialogues that make up a romantic comedy. Her name, after all, is identified with this type of films.

Wanting, as she claims, to mock the stereotype of the “women’s film”, she finally managed to make another one. Even if her ultimate goal was to break down gender biases, in order to achieve that, she highlighted them in the most characteristic way.

Maybe in the end, as much as we don’t admit it, we all need a little cinematic romance, even if it has nothing to do with reality. We’ve all found ourselves watching that “dumb” movie that someone else asked us to put on and accepted by grumbling and taking a seat in the corner of the room so that others won’t see the tear that will be shed when the time comes. And, perhaps, Ephron has that guilty pleasure, too. And let him not admit it.