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This time around Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) and Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) are the star-crossed lovers. Jonathan and Sara meet by chance, "a few years earlier," in Bloomingdale's. Both of our leads are in a hurry to buy last-minute Christmas gifts for their current mates, and happen to grab the same pair of black cashmere gloves. After the two settle the debate of who deserves the gloves more, they go to a small cafe called Serendipity to have some coffee. (Editor: Oh, my god, is that cute or what!)

Sara explains her philosophy about relationships, which she believes are based on fate. Jon isn't quite sold on the idea, and tries to debunk her notions. After the two spend a platonic night on the town, they exchange phone numbers in a mysterious way. Jon puts his number on a five-dollar bill, while Sara writes he phone number into a book, which will be going to a used bookseller. Sara's deal is this, if either of them finds the others phone number, fate has determined that they should be together. At that point they will contact each other again. Of course Jon, being the cynic that he is, figures this is a simple way of blowing him off.

Fast forward to "a few years later," Jon is due to be married in New York. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Sara has recently become engaged to her boyfriend Lars (John Corbett). Both of them have pretty much given up hope of ever seeing each other again, but as "fate" would have it, signs start pointing them in other directions. Two days before Jon is due to be married; he stars noticing signs about Sara. With the help of his buddy Dean (Jeremy Piven), Jon becomes determined to find his "soul mate," while also develops a sudden urge to find hers, and takes a trip back to New York to find him.

As you can probably figure out, this is a film that relies heavily on the concept of chance meetings and fate. Fortunately, it never bogs itself down by becoming overly sentimental or sappy. The cast is very good in this film, and as mentioned above, John Cusack's real-life pal Jerry Piven is back as his onscreen cohort. Molly Shannon gives a nice performance as Eve, Sara's cynical New Age philosopher friend, who is dragged off to New York on Sara's quest to find her true love. Eugene Levy also shows up as a "sales associate" from Bloomingdale's, who can easily be bribed, as long as you help him meet his numbers for the month.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Serendipity is presented in its original 1.85 aspect ratio with anamorphic enhancement. The print is relatively free of blemishes, and most of the minor scratches that are present are not distracting. Chelsom admits in his commentary that he used variable film rates more often than usual for this film, which may be the cause of some of these imperfections. The color palette ranges from pastel to relatively natural looking, but throughout the colors are nicely saturated and fleshtones natural despite some stylized sequences. Black level is perfect and contrast rock solid. The transfer is quite good, but not reference quality like some of the bigger blockbusters available.

Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?

Presented in English 5.1 Dolby Surround, supervising sound editor Paul Clay has created a nicely balanced soundtrack. While all five channels are busy throughout, it is never to a point where one is distracted or pulled out of the film. During the opening sequence in Bloomingdale's, there is a constant murmur one would expect with a department store during Christmas, but it is perfectly natural sounding. There is also a nice use of the full soundstage during the exterior scenes in New York and San Francisco. The dialog is reproduced very well, never sounding stained or "canned." Alan Silvestri's score fits perfectly into this picture, and is about the only audio element that contains any LFE moments, most notably during the climatic scene where Sara is running across town to catch up to Jonathan. Most of the music used in this soundtrack is old, and does not really lend itself to a tremendous amount of low-end.

A full 5.1 French soundtrack has also been provided, in addition to English Close Captions and Spanish subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The first thing one will noticed is the full-motion menus, related to themes and locations from the film. This probably isn't too big a deal to most people, but it adds a nice touch to the presentation. The supplements get off to a great start with the screen-specific audio commentary by director, Peter Chelsom. Since this film is a character driven piece, the behind-the-scenes secrets mostly focus on the actors and the process. Chelsom lavishes praise upon his whole cast, especially Cusack. Apparently, Cusack is a fairly constant ball of energy with tremendous improvisational skills, which is certainly an aspect of Cusack's performances that most of his fans have come to expect. Chelsom also passes along that Sara was originally to be an American, but he decided to make her British so that the role could be a little more natural for Kate Beckinsale. During the opening fifteen minutes, Chelsom highlights the scenes that had to be reshot, because they just didn't have the proper chemistry between Cusack and Chelsom initially. This is not the most enthralling commentary track, but at least it doesn't recycle information from the other supplements.

Next up we have nine Deleted Scenes, which total approximately 15 minutes. As alluded to in Chelsom's commentary, there's not too much here. Most of the deleted scenes, such as the "Original Bloomingdale's Opening" and "Jonathan Gets Cubed" are alternate takes, which were reshot and replaced at the end of the production. While these scenes aren't terribly different from the finished product, one can understand the lack of chemistry that was missing the first time around. Most of the other deleted sequences are alternate takes, which would have slowed the pace of the film, including "Time Marches On" and "I Ching-ing in the Rain." Of the shortest snippets, "Sales Associate" is probably the best, which features an extended rant with Eugene Levy.

The Starz "On The Set: Serendipity" featurette is also included. While this isn't much more than a better written HBO First Look special, this isn't a hard sell documentary either, so not insulting. That being said, it doesn't add much to one's appreciation of the film, unlike the audio commentary and Chelsom's production diary (see below.) It seems that everyone had a lot of fun making this movie, and something tells me there were a lot of interesting improvisation on the set, which led to a nice collection of outtakes. Too bad they weren't included on this disc.

Up next is an extensive Still Gallery with over 100 photos from the production, and a brief Storyboard Comparison of the golf range scene with Molly Shannon and Kate Beckinsale, since this is the only sequence that required extensive forethought. Peter Chelsom's Production Diary has been included on this disc as a still frame supplement, and gives us a day to day account of what happened during the film's production. Not exactly scintillating, but it is informative.

Finally, we have the remaining standard extras one expects on a Buena Vista release. The theatrical trailer is presented in 5.1, but is sadly only full frame. Obligatory Sneak Peeks out the extras, and I suppose the only perplexing preview was for something called SoapNet, a 24-hour soap opera station. I'd mock this, but I know there is an audience for this channel…

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

No ROM extras have been included.

Parting Thoughts