In “Sleepless in Seattle,” it’s his wife, whose burial is the opening scene of the movie.
In two notable movie roles that come to mind, Hanks talks about the need to continue to breathe after suffering a loss - in both cases, the loss of a woman he loves. Thankfully, Hanks and Wilson are both still breathing, even after COVID-19 has shown us that it is far more complicated and elusive than we thought at the time. He and his wife, Rita Wilson, were diagnosed with it in March, back when it was thought of as primarily a respiratory disease. In real life, Hanks has been in the news this year for surviving the novel coronavirus. In several other films, we see the end of his life. In “Philadelphia,” AIDS eventually does just that. In “Splash,” his first major film, we come to a point where we wonder how he - a human named Allen Bauer - can be able to breathe under water, but we can be forgiven because until then we didn’t know much about mermaid magic. In “Joe Versus the Volcano,” his title character sets off on an adventure after being told he has an incurable disease that soon will have him breathing his last breath. When the lunar module for the mission that gives “Apollo 13” its name threatens the lives of the crew due to rising carbon dioxide levels, his Commander Jim Lovell tells the other two astronauts, “Just breathe normal, fellas.” Nearly every minute after that is a race against time and the possibility that all three will breathe their last breaths in outer space. You might be surprised by how often that isn’t always a given his character can count on. Whatever else Tom Hanks is doing in a movie, more often than not, he is breathing.