FinishMySong Blog

The first time I visited the United States, back in 2001, my friends and I chanced upon a cinema in the Southwest Plaza Mall (Littleton, Colorado) and, after a long and convoluted discussion about which film we each preferred to see that afternoon, we sat down to John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale in Serendipity. This is a tale of two people who meet by chance, while they're both shopping in New York City, and immediately hit it off. Jonathon is convinced that he wants to be involved with this new woman who stumbled into his life but Sara isn't so sure and so decides that she'll let fate decide whether the two of them should be together. Reluctantly, Jonathon eventually agrees to this, so Sara writes her contact details in the cover of a particular book and, after they part, gives the book to a secondhand book store in the belief that if their relationship was 'meant to be' then Jonathon would somehow come across the book at some point in the future and so be able to get in touch.

I won't ruin the rest of the plot in case you have never seen the movie but, hasten to add, they do eventually end up together (albeit after over a decade apart) but serendipity really has little or nothing to do with their reunion. Of course, because Jonathon knew which title it was that Sara had written her details in, the 'random' or 'fateful' element of their coming together was already severely degraded - desperately wanting to get in touch with Sara, for years Jonathon became obsessed by checking every bookstore for copies of that particular novel. When he does come across her again for the first time since they parted in New York it is as a result of a thorough investigation and the finale of the movie that sees the couple (presumably) reunited for good comes about as a result of their mutual desire to spend their lives together, not by a chance encounter, unless you count their initial meeting as the serendipity event but, if I'm honest, I think that caused them both an awful lot more grief than it did good fortune!!

So, for a movie entitled Serendipity, the plot seemed a little confused, actually seemingly concluding that mostly we make our own luck and as such are the masters of our own destiny. Handy little chance encounters can always help but your happiness ultimately depends on your own decisions: this is essentially how I feel about life.