Jonathan Trager and Sara Thomas meet in Bloomingdale’s while trying to buy the same pair of gloves, and the film Serendipity spends ninety minutes trying to convince us that fate brought them together. It doesn’t quite manage it. The 2001 romantic comedy, directed by Peter Chelsom and written by Marc Klein, is a pleasant enough trifle about two people who fall for each other despite being attached to others. It is also a movie that forgets its own rules halfway through.
The premise is simple. Jonathan, played by John Cusack, and Sara, played by Kate Beckinsale, both have partners. Both have chemistry. Both leave the store with a sense that they were meant to meet. They agree to let fate decide whether they should see each other again, using a series of tests involving phone numbers, elevators, and a glove tossed across a room. The test fails. They part ways, and the film cuts to seven years later, where Jonathan is engaged to Halley Buchanan, played by Bridget Moynahan, and Sara is engaged to a musician named Lars Hammond, played by John Corbett.
Trailer, via Miramax.
The Fate Tests
The setup is clever. Sara writes her number on a five-dollar bill that she uses to buy breath mints, and Jonathan agrees to sell his copy of Love in the Time of Cholera for hers. They toss a glove across the room and agree that if they land on the same floor, they are meant to be together. The problem is that the film itself forgets these rules. It treats the failure of the tests as a tragedy, but then it proceeds to ignore the very conditions that defined them.
The glove lands on the same floor. Jonathan is delayed by a child pressing random buttons. Sara believes the experiment failed. The film insists that the signal was there all along, even though the evidence suggests otherwise. This contradiction is the heart of the problem. Serendipity wants to be about fate, but it also wants to be about choice. The two ideas cannot sit together comfortably.
The Seven-Year Gap
The jump to seven years later is where the film loses its footing. Jonathan is an ESPN producer, Sara is a therapist in San Francisco, and both are engaged to new partners. The film spends some time showing Jonathan’s frustration with his fiancée, Halley, and Sara’s unease with Lars’s focus on a world tour. These scenes are fine. They establish that neither marriage feels right. But the film’s central question — whether fate brought them together — is left unaddressed for long stretches.
Instead, the movie focuses on the practicalities of finding each other again. Jonathan hires his friend Dean Kansky, played by Jeremy Piven, to help him locate Sara. Sara travels to New York with her best friend Eve, played by Molly Shannon, to find Jonathan. The search itself is the engine of the second half, and it is here that the film’s weaknesses become apparent.
The Search for Each Other
The search is the weakest part of the film. Jonathan and Sara cross paths repeatedly throughout the day. They see each other in a cafe, on a street, in a museum. They are close enough to speak, but they never do. The film’s logic is that fate is testing them again, and they must fail these tests in order to succeed. This is a strange position for a movie about fate to take.
The search scenes are often shot in long takes, with the camera following the characters through crowds. The effect is claustrophobic, and it works against the film’s central idea. Fate is supposed to be guiding them toward each other. Instead, the camera shows them moving away from each other.
The Performances
John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale are both appealing actors, and they are appealing here. Their chemistry is the reason the film works at all. Cusack plays Jonathan as earnest and slightly awkward, and Beckinsale plays Sara as warm and curious. They are the best part of the film, and they carry scenes that the script cannot support.
The supporting cast is less successful. Jeremy Piven’s Dean is a comic relief character, but he is mostly a prop for Jonathan to bounce off of. Molly Shannon’s Eve is a loud, disruptive presence, but she is used primarily to push Sara toward giving up. The film’s reliance on these characters to move the plot forward is a weakness. The story belongs to Jonathan and Sara, and it should stay with them.
The Verdict
Serendipity is a pleasant movie, but it is not a good one. Its central idea is interesting, but it is abandoned midway through. The search scenes are tedious, and the ending feels rushed. The film wants to be a love story about fate, but it settles for a comedy about missed connections.
The film’s tagline asks, “Can once in a lifetime happen twice?” The answer, as the movie itself demonstrates, is yes — but only if you ignore the rules you set up in the first place.
Key Facts
– Title: Serendipity
– Year: 2001
– Director: Peter Chelsom
– Writer: Marc Klein
– Stars: John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale
– Runtime: 90 minutes
– Budget: $28 million
– Box office: $77.5 million
Comparison of the Fate Tests
| Test | Method | Outcome |
|—|—|—|
| Phone number | Tossed by the wind | Lost, interpreted as fate telling them to back off |
| Elevator | Same floor, same moment | Failed due to a child pressing buttons |
| Glove | Tossed across the room | Both picked the same floor |
| Used book | Sold at a bookstore | Never shown to have worked |
| Cafe | Crossing paths | Missed connection |
| Street | Walking near each other | Missed connection |
| Museum | Seeing each other | Missed connection |
The film is a minor curiosity, a movie that tries to be magical realism but settles for a sitcom. It is not a waste of time, but it is not a recommendation either. The performances are strong, the premise is clever, and the ending is rushed. Serendipity is a film that knows what it wants to say, but it does not know how to say it.
The film’s final scene brings Jonathan and Sara together, and the movie ends with a promise that fate has spoken. The promise is hollow, because the film has spent the previous hour teaching us that fate is not reliable. The ending is a cheat, and it leaves the audience feeling cheated.
Serendipity is a film that wants to be about destiny, but it is really about convenience. The signals are there, but the movie ignores them. The tests are meaningful, but the film discards them. The result is a movie that is pleasant to watch but hard to recommend.
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