''Serendipity'' is a 2001 American
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
film directed by
Peter Chelsom
Peter Chelsom (born 20 April 1956) is a British film director, writer, and actor. He has directed such films as ''Hector and the Search for Happiness'', ''Serendipity'', and '' Shall We Dance?'' Peter Chelsom is a member of the British Academ ...
, written by Marc Klein, and starring
John Cusack
John Paul Cusack (; born June 28, 1966)(28 June 1996)Today's birthdays ''Santa Cruz Sentinel'', ("Actors John Cusack is 30") is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and political activist. He is a son of filmmaker Dick Cusack, and his ol ...
and
Kate Beckinsale
Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress and model. After some minor television roles, her film debut was ''Much Ado About Nothing'' (1993) while a student at the University of Oxford. She appeared in British costume ...
. The film grossed $77.5 million on a $28 million budget.
Plot
While
Christmas shopping
The economics of Christmas are significant because Christmas is typically a high-volume selling season for goods suppliers around the world. Sales increase dramatically as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies to celebrate. In the ...
at
Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the business. It became a div ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, Jonathan Trager meets Sara Thomas when both try to buy the same pair of black
cashmere gloves. Despite both being in relationships, a mutual attraction leads them to have dessert at a restaurant called
Serendipity 3 where Sara explains that she lets fate's "little signals" determine many of her life decisions. After separating, they meet again when each returns to the restaurant to retrieve something they forgot. After ice skating, Jonathan convinces Sara to give him her number, but when the wind blows it out of his grasp, Sara thinks it is fate telling them to back off. After Jonathan disagrees, Sara decides to let fate reunite them: she has Jonathan write his number on a five
dollar
Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, ...
bill then uses it to buy breath mints and promises to sell her copy of ''
Love in the Time of Cholera
''Love in the Time of Cholera'' ( es, El amor en los tiempos del cólera) is a novel written in Spanish by Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez and published in 1985. Edith Grossman's English translation was published by ...
'' in which she will write her name and number. As one last experiment, Sara tosses Jonathan one of the gloves, they board separate elevators in the
Waldorf Astoria and agree that if they arrive on the same floor, they are meant to be together. They each pick the same floor, but Jonathan is delayed finding Sara, leading her to believe that the experiment failed. Disappointed, they separate.
Years later, Jonathan is an
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
producer engaged to Halley and Sara is a therapist living in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, engaged to internationally-renowned musician Lars. Jonathan runs across his cashmere glove, so he embarks on a search of the city with his best friend, Dean, to find Sara. Meanwhile, Sara, stressed by the wedding planning and Lars’ focus on an upcoming world tour, travels to New York with her best friend Eve to find Jonathan. After nearly crossing paths with Jonathan throughout the day, Eve and Sara have dessert at Serendipity where Eve convinces Sara to give up her search. As Eve leaves, she picks up the 5 dollar bill with Jonathan's number on it that was left as their change. They catch the same cab that Jonathan and Dean exited while searching for Sara. After finding that a bridal shop next to Serendipity now occupies the address of a roommate finder service Sara once used, Jonathan sees it as a sign that he should marry Halley.
At the Waldorf Astoria, Eve and Sara encounter Halley headed to the wedding rehearsal. Halley invites Eve to join her since they were friends in college, but Sara declines. Outside their room, she finds an apologetic Lars.
At the rehearsal, Jonathan’s distracted demeanor frustrates Halley. She tearfully pleads with him to focus on the wedding and he reassures her that his reservations have let go of him. Halley then gives him Sara's old book containing her phone number as a wedding gift. Jonathan and Dean get her address and fly to San Francisco. Once there, they see Sara's sister and her boyfriend having sex and assume it is Sara in a happy relationship. Dean helps Jonathan realize that he shouldn’t marry Halley while Sara decides to end her engagement to Lars.
The next day, Sara finds the 5 dollar bill with Jonathan's number on it, having gotten hers and Eve's wallets mixed up. After getting his address and being told by the building superintendent of his wedding at the Waldorf, Sara hurries there and is relieved to find the ceremony has been cancelled.
Dean reassures Jonathan that he did the right thing and vows to be more spontaneous in his own marriage, which has been on the rocks. Jonathan wanders to the same ice skating rink where he spent part of his evening with Sara ten years earlier and finds a leather jacket on a bench. As it begins to snow, he lies on his back in the middle of the rink with the jacket as a pillow and one of the pair of cashmere gloves on his chest. When the matching glove lands next to him, he sits up and finds Sara watching him, having come to claim her jacket. They introduce themselves and finally share a kiss.
Later they celebrate their anniversary at Bloomingdale’s in front of the display of cashmere gloves where they met.
Cast
*
John Cusack
John Paul Cusack (; born June 28, 1966)(28 June 1996)Today's birthdays ''Santa Cruz Sentinel'', ("Actors John Cusack is 30") is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and political activist. He is a son of filmmaker Dick Cusack, and his ol ...
as Jonathan Trager
*
Kate Beckinsale
Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress and model. After some minor television roles, her film debut was ''Much Ado About Nothing'' (1993) while a student at the University of Oxford. She appeared in British costume ...
as Sara Thomas
*
Molly Shannon
Molly Helen Shannon (born September 16, 1964) is an American actress and comedian who was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1995 to 2001. In 2017, she won the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in ...
as Eve
*
Bridget Moynahan
Kathryn Bridget Moynahan (born April 28, 1971) is an American actress and model. Moynahan is best known for her role as Erin Reagan in the police drama '' Blue Bloods''. She graduated from Longmeadow High School in Massachusetts in 1989 and be ...
as Halley Buchanan
*
Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Ari Gold in the comedy series '' Entourage'', for which he won a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards. He also starred in the Britis ...
as Dean Kansky
*
John Corbett
John Joseph Corbett Jr. (born May 9, 1961) is an American actor and country music singer. On television, he is best known for his roles as Chris Stevens on ''Northern Exposure'' (1990–1995), Aidan Shaw on ''Sex and the City'' (2000–2003), ...
as Lars Hammond
*
Eugene Levy as Bloomingdale's salesman (Macall Polay)
* Marcia Bennett as Mrs. Trager
* Eve Crawford as Mrs. Buchanan
* Evan Neuman as Kenny
*
Buck Henry
Buck Henry (born Henry Zuckerman; December 9, 1930 – January 8, 2020) was an American actor, screenwriter, and director. Henry's contributions to film included his work as a co-writer for Mike Nichols's ''The Graduate'' (1967) for which he r ...
(''uncredited'') as himself
*
Lucy Gordon as Caroline Mitchell (Sara's sister)
*
Kevin Rice as Kip Mitchell
* Gary Gerbrandt as Josh
Production
''Serendipity'' was shot in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
, and
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
in the summer of 2000. Following the
9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
, images of the
World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
towers were digitally removed from all skyline shots of New York City.
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is an American actress and film producer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Since her career ...
was offered the role of Sara Thomas but turned it down to avoid being
type-cast in romantic comedies.
Carla Gugino
Carla Gugino (; born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. After appearing in ''Troop Beverly Hills'' (1989) and ''This Boy's Life'' (1993), she received recognition for her starring roles as Ingrid Cortez in the ''Spy Kids'' trilogy (2001â ...
and
Claire Forlani auditioned for role of Sara Thomas.
Release
''Serendipity'' premiered at the
2001 Toronto International Film Festival
The 26th Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 6 to September 15, 2001. There were 326 films (249 feature films, 77 short films) from 54 countries scheduled to be screened during the ten-day festival. During a hastily arranged pres ...
. The film opened at #2 at the U.S. box office earning $13,309,241 in its opening weekend, behind ''
Training Day
''Training Day'' is a 2001 American crime thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Ayer. It stars Denzel Washington as Alonzo Harris and Ethan Hawke as Jake Hoyt, two LAPD narcotics officers over a 24-hour period in the gan ...
''. With an estimated budget of $28 million, this was the first of Chelsom's films to turn a profit.
After some of the biggest commercial failures of all time (''
Town & Country''), ''Serendipity'' marked the first of several box-office successes for Chelsom, peaking in 2009 with ''
Hannah Montana: The Movie''. The film grossed $50,294,317 in the domestic box office and $27,221,987 internationally for a worldwide total of $77,516,304.
Reception
Based on reviews, the film holds approval rating on review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, with an average score of . The site's consensus states: "Light and charming, ''Serendipity'' could benefit from less contrivances." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a
weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score of 52 out of 100 from 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert gave the film 1½ out of 4 stars.
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
gave it a mixed review and compared it to cinematic candyfloss.
Music
The soundtrack contains popular music by various artists, with one track from the musical score, composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri.
* "Never a Day" - Wood
* "Moonlight Kiss" -
Bap Kennedy
Martin Christopher Kennedy (17 June 1962 – 1 November 2016), known as Bap Kennedy, was a singer-songwriter from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was noted for his collaborations with Steve Earle, Van Morrison, Shane MacGowan and Mark Knopfler, a ...
* "January Rain" -
David Gray
* "
Waiting in Vain" -
Annie Lennox
* "The Distance" -
Evan & Jaron
Evan Mitchell Lowenstein and Jaron David Lowenstein (born March 18, 1974) are American musicians and identical twin brothers who performed as Evan and Jaron. Evan and Jaron have recorded three studio albums. The duo's most successful single is ...
* "Like Lovers Do" -
Heather Nova
Heather Nova (born Heather Allison Frith, July 6, 1968) is a Bermudian singer-songwriter and poet. , she has released eleven full-length albums, six EPs and twelve singles.
Biography
Heather Nova was born Heather Allison Frith on Bermuda, a B ...
* "When You Know" -
Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. While Colvin has been a solo recording artist for decades, she is best known for her 1998 Grammy Award-winning song " Sunny Came Home".
Early ...
* "Black Eyed Dog" -
Nick Drake
* "
Northern Sky" -
Nick Drake
* "Cool Yule" -
Louis Armstrong
* "This Year" -
Chantal Kreviazuk
* "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" -
Brian Whitman
* "'83" -
John Mayer
* "Fast Forward" -
Alan Silvestri
Alan Anthony Silvestri (born March 26, 1950) is an American composer and conductor of film and television scores. He has been associated with director Robert Zemeckis since 1984, composing music for all of his feature films including the ''Ba ...
* "From Rusholme With Love" - Mint Royale
Not included within the release of the soundtrack
* "Someone Like You" -
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in t ...
* "I'm Still in Love" -
CoCo Lee
Coco Lee (; born Ferren Lee, 17 January 1975) is a Hong Kong-American singer-songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actress. Lee's career began in Hong Kong and then expanded to Taiwan. Her single, "Do You Want My Love" also entered the US m ...
(Asian movie theme song)
* "Rose Rouge" -
St. Germain
See also
*
Serendipity
*
Missed connection, where two people want to reconnect after an initial meeting but neither has the other's contact details.
*
List of Christmas films
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serendipity (Film)
2001 films
2001 romantic comedy films
American Christmas comedy films
American romantic comedy films
Films directed by Peter Chelsom
Films scored by Alan Silvestri
Films set in New York City
Films set in San Francisco
Films shot in California
Films shot in New Jersey
Films shot in New York (state)
Films shot in San Francisco
Films shot in Toronto
Impact of the September 11 attacks on cinema
2000s Christmas comedy films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films