First-Time Caller is a clear homage to Nora Ephron’s 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle. In the film, a widowed father, Sam Baldwin, played by Tom Hanks, discovers that his young son, Jonah, has called in to a radio station expressing the hope that he will remarry. Meg Ryan’s character, Annie, hears Jonah’s call from where she lives in Baltimore and is drawn to the man she knows only as “Sleepless in Seattle,” even though she is engaged to someone else. Annie, like Aiden, is skeptical of the magic of romance, while others around her profess strong belief in it. Sam, for his part, is certain that true love exists because he experienced it with his first wife, Maggie. In addition to these parallels in premise and characterization, the novel contains several more minor allusions to the movie—for instance, the use of Maggie for the name of Aiden’s boss. Similarly, Lucie’s coffee shop goes by the pseudonym of “Brooks Robinson,” a famous baseball player. In the film, baseball is an interest that Sam and Annie share, which they learn when Annie expresses her particular admiration for Robinson.[KM1] 

Sleepless in Seattle itself makes frequent references to another romantic film, An Affair to Remember, which features Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr falling in love after a series of missed connections and relationships with others.