Movie Review on Serendipity Walking into this movie I had expected to like it. I am a sucker for clichés. Cliché romantic tropes, and anything that has to do with things of that sort such as fate, and love. Things like 27 dresses, dirty dancing, and the notebook are a few examples of romances I’ve been automatically drawn to because it contained those aspects in it. As a hopeless romantic sap, I can’t turn away from these movies no matter how bad. And they do get bad sometimes they are almost always disappointing. The movies that tend to have these aspects in them tend to be awful, and extremely predictable. But I still fall for it every time. Because what is more heartwarming than a couple brought together by fate when they were separated to never see each other again? Love causing people to crash into each other, over and over again like the waves do when reaching out to the beach sand. That’s Romantic, and I can’t keep my hands off of it. In this movie the two Jonathan Trager (John Cusack), and Sarah Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) meet in a Burlington store looking for gifts for their significant others but when they both go to grab the same pair of gloves they end up face to face with each other. From then on they connect, and a short romantic sequence starts with them at a café called serendipity, and at ice skating bonding, and getting close. It’s a sort of instant love connection that they begin to form within a few ours that both began to feel confused about it since they are both currently with other people. This leads to an elephant in the room neither know each other well enough to address so they discuss parting ways, and a scene happens in which Sarah explains her beliefs of fate, and serendipity and does a few things to demonstrate that. Then has Jon write his name, and number on a $5, as she writes her info on a book. She buys something with that 5 and sends it off to the next person, and promises to sell her book to bookstore. Reassuring him that if it is meant to be those items will find them both, and bring them together again. The rest of the movie is all of that playing out. Instant love is always frustrating. Especially when put inside a movie like this where these characters are only given a few hours of hanging out with each other, yet it becomes their fuel for the rest of the story. It’s hard to believe that after 2 or 3 hours someone could leave such an impressionable memory that you’d go to some of the lengths these two did to get back to each other. It honestly brings me back to Romeo and Juliet, and we all know how that ends. It’s such a disaster to act so rashly. It is important to take into consideration that this is romance, and none the less a romance in today’s film industry. That should take down expectations a bit more. But even if I ignore analyzing all of those aspects that bothered me. I am still not entirely convinced these two had anything. Acting in this film was decent enough, the characters were developed enough to carry the weight of the story. But the only interesting chemistry that I saw. The relationship I was drawn to was the one between Jon and his best friend Dean Kanksy ( Jeremy Piven). That was a sincere loving connection, and the support he had from his friend, and the words he gave to him at the end were very sweet and endearing.
Those two acted well together, and from my opinion that dynamic and friendship was a lot more interesting than whatever it was that Jon and Sarah had from those few hours that they hung out around Christmas in the late 1990s. All the tropes that romance films have are brilliant, but directors and authors don’t always do justice to them, and in my opinion this movie is one of those that fall flat. Serendipity, fate, and always being brought back together by pure happenings is a lovely theory. I loved the concept, and wish that this movie did it better justice but this movie was too predictable, and the conflicts didn’t feel serious enough. But along with that the emotions these characters had didn’t feel real enough for me to remain interested. There weren't any actual deep connections between the two main characters to explain why they were both willing to drop everything over a whim to please fate. It was all over instant love, and feelings they had years ago over someone they fancied.

Prewriting My opinions before going into the movie? I think it’s going to be a great cliché romance movie about two people who keep being brought back to each other thanks to the strings of fate. This is a cool concept, and I hope they can betray it in an interesting, romantic light. Where characters are hopefully well-developed, and the plot line runs smoothly. I also expect to like this movie partially because I like some of John Cusack’s work. PROS CONS
I liked the concept of serendipity the love or connection felt too rushed, and not real it I liked the letter at the end the guys friend wrote to him wasn’t believable