Serendipity

The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

Actually I'm talking about the 2001 movie starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsdale. Not sure if anyone is familiar with it but I'll break it down for you. John Cusack runs into Kate Beckinsdale at a department store, they hit it off but she believes in fate so she wont give him her name or digits. She does this crazy thing about if they are meant to be together then fate will decide things. She donates a book with her name and number in it to a used bookstore and she gets John to write his name on a 5 dollar bill which she then uses and gets rid of. The thought is if they are supposed to be together then they will find the items and the info written on them.

Anyway there is a bit more but it fast forwards to a few years later where both of the characters are thinking about each other but engaged to other people. They decide they are settling and decide to search for each other and of course there are some of the usual hijinks in this search, and the near misses as they come within a hairs length of each other without realizing and then the Hollywood ending.

Now I actually like the movie (curse you evil feminine side), it actually showed a bit of imagination at points although the ending was obviously totally predictable.

What I find interesting about these movies and these fictional Hollywood endings is that the bit players stories are never told. What happens to that fiancee that did nothing wrong but was dumped because the main character decided to go after their " soulmate"? Soulmate now there is a word I despise with all my being. What exactly is a soulmate? I chalk it up to a word that some persons mainly women use way too loosely to convince themselves that some guy is the only man for them, also known as "the one" like Neo in the matrix.

But I digress. What happens to those left behind by the Hollywood spotlight? Remember when films had these little text messages at the end where they would tie up loose ends: Jimmy gets over the divorce and goes on to win the lottery. "ha ha , how ya like me now, I'm rich beetch!" or Sonia fell into a deep depression after the breakup and because a drug addict who overdosed 2 years after this story or after doing 5 years in prison Charles was released on parole and became a bodyguard for Michael Jackson. Well they don't do that much anymore so you are always left wondering as to what happens to the bit players. They usually do nothing wrong its just they don't have enough star power to get the lead role so they get shafted.

And while you are supposed to feel happy that the lead roles found their soulmates are you not supposed to feel some pity for the poor supporting characters? Most times they do nothing wrong or we only see the story from the stars perspective where they make the supporting character look bad. They almost never show you the emotional distress that the supporting character incurs. Their mental breakdowns, their emotional instability, their jumping into bad relationships on the rebound or turning to alcohol or drugs for an emotional crutch to ease the pain. We are supposed to believe that they shook off the break up and moved on because they realized that the star needed to find his/her soulmate and they were in the way.

Too bad real life aint like that or maybe its good that real life isn't like that. I haven't decided yet.