Jump to content

Serendipity (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 71.189.59.81 (talk) at 00:51, 7 January 2010 (→Plot). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Serendipity
Theatrical release poster
Directed byPeter Chelsom
Written byMarc Klein
Produced bySimon Fields
Peter Abrams
Robert L. Levy
StarringJohn Cusack
Kate Beckinsale
Bridget Moynahan
John Corbett
Jeremy Piven
Eugene Levy
Molly Shannon
CinematographyJohn De Borman
Edited byChristopher Greenbury
Music byAlan Silvestri
Distributed byMiramax Films
Release date
October 5, 2001
Running time
90 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguagesEnglish
French
Budget$28,000,000 [citation needed]
Box office$77,516,304

Serendipity is a 2001 romantic comedy, starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. It was written by Marc Klein and directed by Peter Chelsom. The original music score is composed by Alan Silvestri.

Plot

At the height of the Christmas shopping season in New York City, Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) meets Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) as they both try to buy the same pair of gloves at Bloomingdale's. They feel a mutual attraction, and despite the fact that each of them is involved in other relationships, they end up eating ice cream at Serendipity 3 together, and soon exchange goodbyes. However, both realize that they have left something at the ice cream bar, and return only to find each other again.

Considering this to be a stroke of fate, they decide to go out on the town together, and end up in Central Park. Upon seeing Sara's freckles, Jonathan mentions that they look like the constellation Cassiopeia. He then tells her that Cassiopeia was a very beautiful queen, but when the gods got jealous, they turned her into a constellation. At the end of the night, the two are forced to decide some kind of next step. When the smitten Jonathan suggests an exchange of phone numbers, Sara balks and proposes an idea that will allow fate to take control of their future. Sara asks Jonathan to write his name and phone number on a $5 bill, while she writes her name and number on the inside cover of a used copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. If they are meant to be together, she tells him, he will find the book and she will find the $5 bill, and they will find their way back to each other. They each take a single glove from the pair they purchased.

Five years later, Jonathan is at an engagement party with his fiancé Halley Buchanan (Bridget Moynahan). On the same day, Sara comes home to her house to find Lars Hammond (John Corbett), a famous new age musician, proposing to her. As their wedding dates approach, both find themselves with a case of cold feet, and decide to return to New York in an attempt to find each other again.

Jonathan uses a practical approach. He and his best friend Dean Kansky (Jeremy Piven) return to Bloomingdales in an attempt to find her name using an account number on the original sales receipt for the gloves. They meet the same salesman (Eugene Levy), who tells them he no longer has the account information at the store, but agrees to take them to a storage depot to retrieve it. However, Dean smudges her last name, leaving them only an address. They venture to the address where they meet a painter Mr. Mignon, who has very little recollection of Sara. However, he does recall that she lived there for a short time after being referred by a placement company, which he identifies as being located in a shop next to Serendipity 3. Jonathan and Dean follow the lead to find that the agency has moved and its former location is now a bridal shop. Jonathan takes this as a sign that he is supposed to stop looking for Sara, and get married to Halley.

Sara leaves the hunt to fate. She takes her best friend Eve (Molly Shannon) with her to New York, where she visits the locations of her date, hoping that fate will make Jonathan turn up. At the Waldorf Astoria, Eve bumps into an old friend who is there to get married the next day. The old friend is Halley, who invites Eve and Sara to the wedding, without anyone realizing the groom is Jonathan. Failing in their search, Sara and Eve console themselves with a coffee at Serendipity. Eve is handed the $5 bill as change, but neither notices this at the time. They miss Jonathan by moments when they leave.

During the practice wedding the day before the big event, Halley hands Jonathan a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera as a groom's gift, having noticed him picking up the book every time they were in a used book store. It is the copy that Sara had written in, and he immediately sets off to find her. He gets to the house but sees people in her house being intimate. Jonathan tells Dean that he wouldn’t have wanted to break off what they have and comes back home for the wedding.

Sara decides not to go to the wedding, and starts to return home. She returns to the Waldorf to retrieve her belongings, where she finds Lars, who followed her to New York. On the plane, Sara is asked if she wants a headset. To her surprise, she finds her wallet got exchanged with Eve’s. She pays the flight attendant $5 for the headset, and realizes she has the same $5 bill which Jonathan wrote on five years earlier. Now that she knows his full name, she gets off the plane to continue the search for Jonathan. His neighbors tell her he’s getting married the same day. She rushes to the hotel only to see a man cleaning up, apparently at the end of the ceremony. She is in tears until the man says the wedding was called off. Eve then get in a cab to go home while Sara plans to keep looking, later Sara remembers the jacket she left in the park.

Jonathan, in the meantime, is wandering around Central Park. He finds Sara's jacket and uses it as a pillow as he lies down. As the first snowflake drops, the other pair of the gloves floats to him and he sees Sara. They introduce themselves to each other formally for the first time. The film concludes with Sara and Jonathan at Bloomingdales enjoying champagne on their anniversary at the same spot where they first met. Just when they are about to buy a black pair of gloves, which they do every year for luck, the same salesman appears. The film ends with the couple speaking with the salesman, once again arguing upon the dividing line in between the counter and personnel area.

Cast

Soundtrack

See also

  • Serendipity
  • Missed connection is a term that describes the kind of situation where two people want to reconnect after an initial meeting but do not have the other person's contact details. Ways now exist to help people reconnect when this occurs.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Serendipity_(film)&oldid=336310541"