Twenty Years Later, Director Peter Chelsom Reflects On His Inadvertent Classic 'Serendipity'
In the fall of 2001, a random little film titled Serendipity hit theaters. The film initially received mixed reviews from critics, but in a post 9/11 America proved to be the kind of feel-good movie people needed making back more than double its budget in box office returns. In the twenty years since, fans new and old have continued to respond positively to leading it to become both a cult romantic comedy and a cult holiday film.
Set during Christmastime in New York City initially, the film revolves around two superstitious strangers (played John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale) who share one magical evening, but leave it up to chance as to whether or not they’ll ever meet again. Years later, as they each are about to get married, they decided they need closure on that would-be relationship and separately begin to look for each other. Little do they know that their constant motion is only thing consistently keeping them apart.
It’s a film that relies on convenience, but that also explores the beauty of fate. To celebrate its anniversary, FilmSpeak recently sat down with director Peter Chelsom to reflect almost ironic success over the past two decades.
“There were some reviews that were as good as it gets. And yes, there were some harsh reviews,” he said, “The thing about it is it's endured. It just keeps coming back and rising now, and they keep telling me it's spiking and become a perennial Christmas movie.”
Despite its setting, he remarks that its irrelevant to the film’s greatness or what he thinks people have really grown to love about it. Between the current models put in place by Netflix, the Hallmark Channel, and “cancel culture”, Chelsoms describes the current state of filmmaking - and the art of making romantic comedies specifically - “a minefield.”
He explains, “romantic comedies are delicate these days, it's very hard to make them because of appropriateness.”
Looking back, he says, “I [find] a lot of the romantic comedies [to be] very sexist, to be honest. You have the frat boy behaving really badly with a with a beautiful blonde. Then the shit hits the fan at the end of Act Two, and he apologizes. And that's all he needs to do. And there's a hit single in the credits.”
While he says that the formula has changed throughout the years, he adds that the reason Serendipity is so great is because, “It's like this one's the last of the honest, shamelessly sentimental romantic comedies, isn't it? And I think people have missed that.”
In regards to the film being considered a Christmas movie - despite a majority of the film taking place after-the-fact - he says, “What's stated about love, what's stated about attraction, [and] what’s stated about the sense of destiny and fate and purpose in our lives,” maintains that magic.