SERENDIPITY (2001) **1/2 Aimed straight for the heart somewhere between Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally, it's an unabashedly sentimental love story. For teenagers mainly, and I see nothing wrong with exposing them to a little Louis Armstrong and Nick Drake along with their chosen post-modernists. Beyond puppy loved teenagers it's a good film for people who insist on believing in soulmates, in kismet, that everything happens for a reason, that to love one human is perhaps the ultimate preparation for everything else, that nothing is more important than your choice of mate, that feint heart and rational mind never won the fair maiden, that all you really do need is love, for people who are so edified and astounded by the glorious title of Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript that actually reading the work would be superfluous...it's a film that works for teenagers and people like me. Of course there's no suspense whatsoever, and making a film about such things runs an emormous risk of looking as ridiculous as do most films launched forth with such ideals. The locations are tried and true romantic hotspots in New York and San Francisco. The actors have to be believable and appealing, and John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale are. It helps if they're supported by a familiar face or two along the way-Molly Shannon and John Corbett (leading a rock band by aggressively playing some kind of Himalayan flute, and evoking a variation of Liberace mutation in the process) not only do, but they remind us of fun and important television shows, Jeremy Piven is the moral support/cheerleader who assures us that it's alright to adore such lunacy, and Eugene Levy rules as the incarnation of where everyone else goes wrong. Hooray for Love! Hooray for Kismet! Hooray for producers who understand that the world isn't too jaded for wonderful stuff like this!
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