Serendipity (film)
Serendipity is a 2001 American romantic comedy film directed by Peter Chelsom, written by Marc Klein, and starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. The film grossed $77.5 million on a $28 million budget.
During the Christmas season in New York City, Jonathan Trager encounters Sara Thomas at Bloomingdale’s while they attempt to buy the same pair of black cashmere gloves. While they are both in relationships, a mutual attraction leads to them sharing dessert at Serendipity 3. Sara reveals her opinion that fate determines many of her decisions in life. They encounter each other again when they both have to return to the restaurant to retrieve things that they have left behind. Considering this to be fate, they spend more time together and just after they exchange phone numbers Sara’s gets blown into the wind. She interprets this as a bad omen so instead suggests alternative ways to put their numbers out into the universe.
Sara tells Jonathan to write his name and phone number on a $5 bill, which she gives to a street vendor to buy some Certs. She then writes her name inside a book, which she tells John she will sell the next day to a used bookstore. If either one finds the other’s item, he or she can contact the other person, and it means they are meant to be together. The book that Sara writes her number in is Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera.[4]
A few years later,[5] Jonathan is in New York City getting engaged to Halley Buchanan. On the same day, Sara is in San Francisco and comes home to find her boyfriend Lars Hammond proposing to her. Cold feet ensue as their respective wedding dates approach; they start their attempt to reconnect.
Sara flies to New York City and, after her friend Eve persuades her to give up the chase, they go to Serendipity. The $5 bill given to Eve in change has Jonathan’s contact information, although it takes a while for Sara to find it. Meanwhile, Jonathan gets as a gift from Halley on the night of the wedding rehearsal: the copy of Love in the Time of Cholera that has Sara’s phone number. He and his friend Dean fly to San Francisco to find her. Jonathan sees a woman at Sara’s house who he thinks is Sara but is Sara’s sister, Caroline, fooling around with her boyfriend. Jonathan believes that his chasing ghosts means that he does not want to marry Halley. On board a plane to return to San Francisco, Sara is buying a head set and finds that she has Eve’s wallet containing the $5 bill with Jonathan’s information. She disembarks and makes her way to his apartment. His neighbors tell her about his wedding at the Waldorf Astoria where she discovers that his wedding has been called off.
Jonathan wanders Central Park, and comes upon a bench at the ice rink that has a jacket Sara had left behind earlier. He uses the jacket for a pillow while lying in the middle of the rink. He has with him one black cashmere glove. He gazes up at the falling snow and a cashmere glove falls on his chest. He sees it is Sara; the glove is hers. They introduce themselves to each other formally for the first time. In the final scene, Sara and Jonathan are at Bloomingdale’s, enjoying champagne on their anniversary at the same spot where they first met.
