Serendipity (2001)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Directed by Peter Chelsom
Written by Marc Klein
Starring John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale, Molly Shannon, Jeremy Piven, Howard Levy

Features:

• Still Photo Gallery
  
• Running Director's Commentary
  
• Deleted Scenes
  

Anamorphic: Yes.

My Advice: Rent It.

Jonathan Trager (Cusack) and Sara Thomas (Beckinsale) meet by chance at the accessories counter of Bloomingdale's one fateful Christmas where they fight over the last pair of black gloves in the store. They hit it off and wind up spending the evening together and falling in love. However, they are each in a relationship, so they depart agreeing that if the fates want them to be together, then it will happen. Nine years later, they are both engaged to marry other people, but they can't get that one night out of their heads. Each begins a frantic nationwide search based on very limited information in order to find their soul mate.

This is a really good date movie though it's filled to the brim (almost to a fault) of ooey-gooey romantic stuff. Cusack is charming, but he plays the same character he always does, which I guess has become kind of an Everyman. There are two actors who really shine in this film: Piven and Beckinsale. Piven is perfect as the archtypal Best Man. His dialogue is fast paced and he really plays well off of Cusack's energy; though he can slow it down during his pivotal moment in the story. Beckinsale proves that she really can act if she is free from the chains of an accent other than her own. She is incredibly natural and endlessly charming. The great part about the story is you really do want them to get back together even though they don't really know each other.

The problem with this DVD is that the film is decent, but not good enough to be excited about the extra stuff...and the paucity of extras didn't help my enthusiasm. The deleted scenes section is mediocre at best. It's like I said, I really didn't care enough to about what made it into the film to see what they cut from it; and it's stuff, though, that definitely should have been cut. Some of the scenes are reshoots of scenes that made it into the film, but the changes were so subtle that I really had to watch closely to see the difference. No problem there. The director's commentary is filled with Chesolm talking about what an amazing director he is for allowing his actors to have the freedom to improvise some of the lines. I'm sorry, but actor improvisation does not a director make. The other parts of his comments that are directly related to the film, he seems more to be defending his choices rather than explaining them. Hmmm...

So, final analysis is this: If you are on a date looking for something to throw into the DVD player after a nice meal, you really could do worse than this movie. It's fuzzy and warm in all the right places. But, I don't think its worth keeping in the collection permanently.