Own the rights?
Coming soon after Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, Serendipity tries to capitalize on the idea of two people searching for each other, and only finding each other in the last moments of the film. Sadly, the film fails on the most basic level to entertain, leaving the viewer with nothing but a more-than-mild case of hatred for the protagonists and a sick feeling in their stomachs.In You've Got Mail the idea that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were developing a relationship behind their respective significant others' backs worked because their significant others were shallow, nasty people that we could muster no love for, who continually let down and abused Tom and Meg. In Serendipity, John Cusack is about to marry a wonderful woman. But he is obsessed with a brief encounter he once had with Kate Beckinsale's character, to the point of being willing to abandon his wedding for a chance to meet her. From the first minutes of the movie, when he revealed that he had a girlfriend, and yet was willing to start a relationship with Beckinsale's character, Cusack's character lost the viewers sympathy. In the most stomach turning scene in the movie, when his fiancee gives him the key to find Beckinsale, and, incidentally, dump his fiancee and destroy her life, he looks at her, his face blank, thanks her, and leaves to find another woman.The characters in Serendipity are never more than shallow and self-centered, willing to mislead their fiancee's, lie, even cheat, for just one chance to have, not just happiness, but ultimate happiness.If these characters had shown any honesty, any decency towards the jilted parties, perhaps it would have been a different movie. Instead the characters seem to go out of their way to pile lie upon lie, deception upon deception. Cusack, who lent a soulless contract killer likability in Grosse Point Blank, is surprisingly flat here.
You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.
