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SERENDIPITY Send This Review to a Friend
The new romantic indulgence "Serendipity" has a bad case of cutes and a good case of casting. There is more whipped cream in the film than you'll find on a sundae at the real Manhattan location Serendipity, one of the film's many Manhattan settings. But there is no denying the screen appeal of Kate Beckinsale as Sara and John Cusack as Jonathan, who meet while Christmas shopping at Bloomingdale's. She has a boyfriend, he has a girlfriend. But they're magically attracted. However, Sara believes in fate, and while refusing to give him her phone number, she leaves some clues on the theory that if fate eventually delivers, they'll know it should be forever.
If you believe in this plot your tolerance is much stronger than fate's fickle finger. As time passes the situation drives Jonathan nuts as he nurses the vision of this woman even as his wedding day approaches and he goes on a wild chase to track Sara down. Needless to say she has similar feelings as her wedding with a star musician approaches.
Jonathan tries to get an over-the-top salesman at Bloomingdale's to trace Sara's credit card. The salesman, played broadly by Eugene Levy, is short on meeting his quota and blackmails Jonathan into buying clothes he doesn't want. Whereupon my seasoned-shopper wife leaned toward me and whispered the only sensible words of the evening, "Doesn't he know that he can take everything back?"
The Waldorf-Astoria also figures prominently in the film, which is something of an ode to New York as well as to romance. The maneuvers are drawn out to the hilt in the gooey script by Marc Klein and milked accordingly by director Peter Chelsom, who has made a very glossy, good-looking but only occasionally amusing film, the outcome of which has to be known from the start. The charm of the stars goes a long way, and those susceptible to this sort of fluff may find enjoyment. Others may gag. Maybe it should only be shown on Valentine's Day. In any case, my cynical attitude suggested that the film should have a line at the end saying "Three years later they were divorced." A Miramax Films release.
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