SERENDIPITY

In this whimsical romantic comedy of sorts, John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale are potential soulmates who meet during a chance encounter in a New York City department store. The only problem is that each is involved with someone else, so they don’t exchange personal information. A few years later she’s on the West Coast engaged to a trippy musician and he’s still in New York preparing for his own nuptials. What ensues is a case of cold feet, overpowering reminders of each other, and a cross-country pursuit that’s buoyed by a blinding array of extraordinary happenstance — thus the film’s title. The direction by Peter Chelsom (Hear My Song and Town and Country) is sweet-natured veering into convenient and maudlin. Cusack and the effervescent Beckinsale spark a reasonable romantic chemistry, but it’s the fringe players, like Eugene Levy’s demented department-store salesperson and Jeremy Piven’s New York Times obituary writer, that make the froth bubble.

— Tom Meek