feeling listless

Film Watching ‘Serendipity’ after the above three hour opus was bound to be a let down. I’m happy to report that it still had a spark despite it’s obvious derivativeness. This is film as Aibodog – safe, reliable, predictable. This is another high-concept rom-com in the style of ‘One Fine Day’ and ‘Martha meet…’, and I’ve always had a soft spot for those. John Cusack is of course playing his usual self – but there is something comforting about that, reliable. Kate Beckinsale manages to overcome Pearl Harbor embarrassment producing a sparky little rom-com showing – this is the girl we fell in love with watching ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. This is a Nora Ephron film without sentimentality (a good thing).

A few criticisms. Cusack and Beckinsale don’t spend enough time on screen together even though there is an obvious chemistry there. It looks wrong that the twin towers are missing from the scenes set in the past.

But a major flaw is in the motivations of the characters. Much of the time we have little sense of desperation – for this to have worked we needed to feel that perhaps this is the last chance either of them have to be happy. This would have been brought out in the scenes when they are with their respective fiancés – the feeling of making do which made Meg Ryan’s search in ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ so important. Beckinsale doesn’t seem too unhappy in her relationship with Chris in the Morning on K-Ber, just a bit overlooked (and we ought to wonder what kind of heartless wench would still dump the guy who travelled all the way across the country to find her and traipsed about a much of hotels in the freezing cold looking for her). Cusack’s character seems to brush off his wedding a bit too easily – making him seem a touch unsympathetic. The only thing which seems to be wrong with his fiancé is blandness, as far as we can tell. Instead we just have the story of two people going to extra-ordinary lengths just because they fancy each other a bit. But on reflections this could be the one message the film has in it’s favour. Never to let those tiny moments of romance pass you by.