Falling Upwards

It's finally December! The season is well underway, and I am incredibly excited for my favorite holiday, Christmas.  In honor of that, for the month of December I will be covering only holiday movies. (For everyone who does not enjoy the holidays ... why are you here?)

Possibly my favorite holiday movie, if not one of my top five favorite movies of all time, is Serendipity (2001). Set in the early aughts, it raises the question of what would happen if you met an amazing stranger ... and then you never saw them again?

That's what happens to Jonathan and Sara.

After a meet-cute over a pair of gloves in a New York department store, the pair quickly discover that not only are they both not single, but they are both incredibly attracted to one another. I mean, you saw that picture. You can probably feel the fireworks from here.

Now, Jonathan is of the mind to exchange numbers, I quote, "just in case."

"In case of what?" Sara asks.

"In case of life."

Sara isn't so sure. She wants to believe in fate, in destiny. And so they part, never to see each other again. Or will they? (Cue the music.)

Just a reminder that this is what John Cusack looks like.

There is a coyness, a quickness, to Serendipity. Let us get you in on the joke, it says. It doesn't hurt that Jeremy Piven is in high form as Jonathan's best friend, Dean, obit writer and general scoundrel.

As Jonathan and Sara take their respective paths in their search for love, the film's constancy actually derives from their friendships--Jonathan's with Dean, and Sara's with her best friend, Eve. These relationships with people who have known them longer than any romantic attachment are the heart and soul of the film. Without them the plot might feel like a cheap deck of cards, easily tipped over.

Yes, Serendipity can be silly--but that's a part of the magic. We're all fools in love, it says, but you can be a fool if you want to be.

And that is what this is all about, right? Love. That beautiful and multi-varied thing. And maybe the source of it is chemistry or biology or something precise that can be pointed to. But maybe, as Serendipity suggests, maybe it's not. Maybe it's luck, or chance, or taking the early bus that day, and you won't know until it has landed straight in your lap, having fallen out of the sky.

Where does this leave Jonathan and Sara? Well. You never know.

Lightning could strike.

Have a good night and once again, happy December.