“Serendipity” Poses an Important Question: Can We Trust Fate to Bring Us Together?

Copyright © 2009 Ed Bagley

Serendipity – 2 Stars (Average)

“Serendipity” begs the question: “Can you trust pure fate or destiny to bring two people together when the odds of doing so are impossible?”

A common definition of fate is “the development of events outside a person’s control”, and a common definition of destiny is “the hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future”. Given this perspective, the odds are long and not good. Which is why we root for the two people in this movie to ultimately beat the odds.

We are captivated by magic, especially when it comes to relationships, love and marriage. We want to believe the best, and ignore the worst that can happen. The risk takers among us will bet the course of our life on making an unpopular decision that lacks common sense and sensibility.

Such is the mindset of Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) when she momentarily meets Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) in Bloomingdale’s while buying a pair of gloves. Sara is buying them for her boyfriend, and Jonathan is buying them for his girlfriend.

They both hook up for a few hours despite being committed to another, and Jonathan almost immediately decides he wants to see more of Sara. Sara, a believer in fate, is finally coaxed into giving Jonathan her phone number, but the wind blows the slip of paper away. Sara is all about reading signals, and this is the first of many.

She eventually tells Jonathan her first name, but writes her full name and phone number in a book—Love in the Time of Cholera—and then they misconnect, and should Jonathan ever want to find her again, he must find that exact book, wherever it may be. Jonathan stays in New York, but Sara eventually ends up in San Francisco.

Ten years pass and both of them are engaged and soon to be married to someone else. Jonathan has searched for the book but never found it, and Sara wonders if her chosen one, Lars Hammond (John Corbett), is really the right choice.

They begin to search for each other as time nears for Jonathan to walk down the aisle with Halley Buchanan (Bridget Moynahan). Jonathan enlists the aid of his best friend Dean Kansky (Jeremy Piven), and Sara seeks help from her friend Eve (Molly Shannon). Without realizing it, they nearly cross paths several times before we find out what fate and destiny have in store for the wannabe couple.

The plot in this film is fine; the script by Marc Klein could be better. There are enough problems with sound and situations in this movie that make it difficult to hear the lines and, if you did, they are not that great. The direction by Peter Chelson is somewhat better.

While the genuineness of John Cusack in his role is believable, and there are some really great shots of Kate Beckinsale looking mighty fine, there really is no great acting going on. Despite the plot, Serendipity gets virtually zip notice for acting, directing or scriptwriting at awards time.

It is the idea of the movie—that we want to believe in the magic of these two souls finding each other in the end—that draws us in and makes it work. On this score, I am just as big a sucker as the next guy.

I believe in magic, and I am a risk taker. My first great love was in high school; I was absolutely smitten with this girl. I went off to college and she found someone else during her senior year in high school.

When we both were ready to graduate from college and she was getting married, I contacted her and questioned whether she had made the right choice for marriage. I proposed we run away together; she refused, and I refused to believe she had any more feelings for her proposed marriage partner than she did for me. I knew she was really marrying for security, not passion.

She gave me a book—The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran—and wrote this inside for me to ponder: “Time and Memories are eternal, Memories come from Time . . . , But Time from Memories, never.” To this day I do not know if the saying came from Gibran’s book, or if she made it up.

Trust me when I say that I have never been a fan of Kahlil Gibran, not 43 years ago and not today. I can confirm with absolutely certainty, however, one thing that Gibran did say in his book—”love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

Today I am much older and much wiser, and I still believe in magic. Here is the kind of magic I believe in: “At any given place on any given day at any given time, something magical can happen”. It happened to me once, and it could happen to me again.

See Serendipity, if for no other reason than magic can happen if you let it.

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