Serendipity

Peter Chelsom shot the film in the summer of 2000, in New York, New Jersey, Ontario and San Francisco. Release came more than a year later, and after the September 11 attacks the World Trade Center towers were digitally removed from the skyline shots. What reaches the screen is a New York corrected after the fact. Jennifer Aniston was offered Sara first and refused, wary of being locked into romantic comedy; Carla Gugino and Claire Forlani auditioned before the part went to Kate Beckinsale. It opened on 5 October 2001, took $13.3 million on its first weekend behind Training Day at number two, and on a $28 million budget became Chelsom’s first profitable picture. Marc Klein’s script makes coincidence the machinery: Jonathan does get the number, the paper blows away, Sara reads that as a sign to back off, and the decision passes to a five dollar bill and a second hand bookshop. Seven years on both are engaged elsewhere, and the second half rests on those engagements holding. A good fit if you accept a rule set that hands the meeting to fate and want to follow John Cusack and Beckinsale on separate tracks. Not for viewers who expect the two to be straight with the people they are engaged to.