....but it's not great either. There's something missing.
One night while shopping at Bloomingdale's for their respective boyfriend and girlfriend, Sara Thomas (Beckinsdale) and Jonathan Trager (Cusack) both want the last pair of black cashmere gloves in the store. After some flirting, and telling a lame story to a guy who also wants the glove, they hit it off, decide to have a cup of coffee, and end up having the best spontaneous date in the history of film (BUT THEY BOTH HAVE A SIGNIFICANT OTHER. too funny to me). Sara believes that things are predestined, happen for a reason, but Jonathan's not buying it. To prove that if it's meant to be, they should continue this, she has him write his name and number on a five dollar bill and promptly puts it "out into the universe" by buying some breath mints. She writes her name and number in a book she just bought and will sell the next day to a bookstore. If she finds the bill or he finds the book, it's meant to be. To push their luck (as if this other scenario wasn't crazy enough) they get in separate elevators at the Waldorf Astoria and if they meet on the same floor, it's got to be fate they're together. Well, they don't get off on the same floor (close though) and this gets the ball rolling to where we meet these characters years later, where they've moved on to other relationships, but still thinking about each other. We find out how intertwined their lives really are and spend the rest of the picture seeing if fate will indeed bring them together.
I liked the movie but didn't love it. It's great acting, especially by Jeremy Piven as Cusack's best friend and Eugene Levy as an annoying, but still helpful, Bloomies clerk. This movie tries to capture that whole "Sleepless in Seattle" old school romance thing, but it just doesn't have the magic of earlier romantic comedies. Now whether this is simply b/c it wasn't there in the movie or I(and we as moviegoers) have seen this formula way too many times, I'm not entirely sure. It's probably both b/c this isn't a new concept [romantic comedy], but it was the filmmakers' job to sell us this idea and in my opinion they didn't. While there's definitely good things about this movie, there weren't enough for me to recommend this movie beyond rental status. Now I will say this would be a great first date movie, as it raises a bunch of good questions: is there fate? Will fate bring you to your soulmate? Is there a such thing as your soulmate and would you know it? It even goes into how to keep the love/romance alive in a prolonged relationship.
The romantic in me wanted this movie to be much more than it was, and it wasn't that my expectations were so high. It's just that this movie is so low.
One night while shopping at Bloomingdale's for their respective boyfriend and girlfriend, Sara Thomas (Beckinsdale) and Jonathan Trager (Cusack) both want the last pair of black cashmere gloves in the store. After some flirting, and telling a lame story to a guy who also wants the glove, they hit it off, decide to have a cup of coffee, and end up having the best spontaneous date in the history of film (BUT THEY BOTH HAVE A SIGNIFICANT OTHER. too funny to me). Sara believes that things are predestined, happen for a reason, but Jonathan's not buying it. To prove that if it's meant to be, they should continue this, she has him write his name and number on a five dollar bill and promptly puts it "out into the universe" by buying some breath mints. She writes her name and number in a book she just bought and will sell the next day to a bookstore. If she finds the bill or he finds the book, it's meant to be. To push their luck (as if this other scenario wasn't crazy enough) they get in separate elevators at the Waldorf Astoria and if they meet on the same floor, it's got to be fate they're together. Well, they don't get off on the same floor (close though) and this gets the ball rolling to where we meet these characters years later, where they've moved on to other relationships, but still thinking about each other. We find out how intertwined their lives really are and spend the rest of the picture seeing if fate will indeed bring them together.
I liked the movie but didn't love it. It's great acting, especially by Jeremy Piven as Cusack's best friend and Eugene Levy as an annoying, but still helpful, Bloomies clerk. This movie tries to capture that whole "Sleepless in Seattle" old school romance thing, but it just doesn't have the magic of earlier romantic comedies. Now whether this is simply b/c it wasn't there in the movie or I(and we as moviegoers) have seen this formula way too many times, I'm not entirely sure. It's probably both b/c this isn't a new concept [romantic comedy], but it was the filmmakers' job to sell us this idea and in my opinion they didn't. While there's definitely good things about this movie, there weren't enough for me to recommend this movie beyond rental status. Now I will say this would be a great first date movie, as it raises a bunch of good questions: is there fate? Will fate bring you to your soulmate? Is there a such thing as your soulmate and would you know it? It even goes into how to keep the love/romance alive in a prolonged relationship.
The romantic in me wanted this movie to be much more than it was, and it wasn't that my expectations were so high. It's just that this movie is so low.