Serendipity (2001)

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

7 is the lowest rating I give when I don't really have any criticism.This movie has a great cast, fantastic eye candy AND fortuitously, fate has given us yet another opportunity to laugh at a movie in which Cusack's pain is a central theme. Who doesn't enjoy that? That's what he gets for making an 80's movie about getting laid sans any nude babes. Jerk.This is a must see for the RomCom crowd and enthusiasts of watching Cusack suffer. I can watch this every 5 - 7 years even though I still want my $2 from going to see The Sure Thing. That entire movie would have been better off dead on the cutting room floor.

Might have worked with Meg & Tom (script of course by Nora). Would have been a blast with Cary Grant & Irene Dunne 80 years ago but it's just another rushed choppy flat halfway effort with Cusack & Beckensale. No question she's gorgeous but she just can't act. Cusack can act but just can't do light comedy. Example: the critical hotel elevator scene in the beginning with the obnoxious kid & chubby (wouldn't be funny if dad wasn't chubby, right?). It should have been hilarious. Picture Cary Grant who was the master of these kinds of comic situations (see Bringing up Baby, for example) or Tom Hanks who cut his teeth in comedy. Cusack just acts peevish, period. I can only attribute the high ranking here to how inured viewers have become to highly derivative work from Hollywood.

Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack, along with plenty of candles and Christmas lights give this movie a warm glow.In how-to-draw portrait books, we are taught to start with sketched lines to define a classic head shape, then to divide the face into equal segments – few people in real life actually fit those idealised proportions, however Kate Beckinsale does – and as Sara Thomas, she has never been photographed to better advantage.Along with her polished English accent, and her understated style, she is a disarming package (and also possessor of an outrageous sense of humour judging from late night chat shows). It actually makes believable that John Cusack's Jonathon Trager would keep her memory fresh after meeting her for only one night five years before.Cusack is interesting for other reasons. There always seems to be something else going on beneath that somewhat cynical surface. I'm not sure romantic comedy is as natural for him as it is for her. He seems more defined by edgier fare such as "The Grifters" or "The Frozen Ground". However, that may be just the right energy for this role because for much of the film Jonathan is engaged to another woman while desperately seeking Sara.The production is a stylish one, and exudes a romantic quality. If there is a disappointment it is that genuinely witty lines are a little hard to come by in "Serendipity".Normally a comedy can get a lot of mileage out of best man speeches, but the one delivered by Jeremy Pivan's character is a bit of a misfire. Other lines although milked hard, don't quite make it.Fortunately, the scene where Jonathan encounters the sales clerk played by Eugene Levy delivers laughs lacking in other places – sales clerks, whether acid tongued, prissy or totally obsequious, rarely fail to get laughs in comedies, especially when in the hands of expert practitioners such as W.C. Fields, Paul Lynde or Larry Miller in "Pretty Woman"."Serendipity" doesn't quite line up with my personal favourites of the genre: "Four Weddings and a Funeral", Sleepless in Seattle and "You've Got Mail". However, it features two engaging stars, who skate serenely over the cracks in an unapologetically over-the-top story.

Just another wishy-washy, highly improbable, "true love conquers all" fantasy rom-com, which really thinks it clever with all that serependitious "fate" leading up to a big soppy, happy ending.John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale play the literally star-crossed lovers, whose chance meeting over a pair of gloves in Bloomingdales just before Christmas apparently sees them click as only true lovers can despite both being engaged to other people. Through partial design and massively coincidental chance they separate but return years later to their favourite New York locations where wouldn't you know it, they finally catch up with each other and re-ignite their earlier spark.This idea has been done before in the likes of "An Affair To Remember" and naturally "Sleepless in Seattle" but I found it very insubstantial and uninvolving indeed. The two leads are attractive enough but get given some terrible airy-fairy dialogue to spout. I felt that with more grounded writing, plus a few laughs and a decent soundtrack wouldn't have hurt either, but really, besides showing off some nice New York locations, this is one film I'm sorry my path happened upon.