Sweet & Sour Serendipity

Wait for the video: Serendipity would be a much better bet if you had a remote control. The agonizing cheesy love exchanges and the characters' endless search for their soul mates would be easier to bear with a fast forward button.

The plot of the movie is simple: The two main characters, Jonathan Trager (Cusack) and Sara Thomas (Beckinsdale) meet by chance in the Bloomingdale's glove department and are immediately transfixed. But Sara has a boyfriend, though she's an ardent believer in fate and destiny. Is Jonathan the one? Despite the spark, it takes seven years to find out, when the two are both coincidentally about to marry other people.

Perhaps because the plot is so predictable, the director managed to put what seemed like twenty different obstacles in the fated lovers' paths. So many that you start to feel like Sisyphus, trying to reach a turning point in the film, almost getting there, then ending up right where you started.

The peripheral characters the two encounter along the way are what may keep you in your seat. Lars Hammond (John Corbett from Sex and the City), Sara's fiancZ, Macall Poley (Eugene Levy) and Dean Kansky (Jeremy Piven) give entertaining and comedic performances, although their roles serve more to advertise New York tourism than enhance the plot. Dean works for The New York Times and is of course filled with all sorts of facts and references. Macall showcases the men's fall line at Bloomingdale's and all the other characters happen to be staying at The Waldorf-Astoria, including Jonathan's fiancZ, Halley, played by model Bridget Moynahan.

Overall, Serendipity is far from high quality, but fans of romantic comedies (even anemic wannabes like this one) may be satisfied. Nonetheless, this is no Affair to Remember.

--By Alexandra Wolfe