From Amazon.com
Audrey Tautou (star of
Amélie) shimmers like a born movie star in
Happenstance. A woman on the morning train tells Tautou that the full moon will lead her to her soulmate; from there,
Happenstance follows a marvelous interlocking series of events, in which little things (like whether or not a young museum guard eats a piece of chocolate) affect bigger ones (like whether or not an adulterous husband will tell his wife the truth). The numerous characters intersect with each other's lives, creating a web of coincidences that finally catches Tautou like a hapless fly. This could have been cloying and forced, but the writing and directing are so deft and subtle that the coincidences of
Happenstance feel natural and compelling. A sweet and hopeful movie, with excellent performance all around, but Tautou's wide-open eyes leap out of her every scene, hypnotic and charming.
--Bret Fetzer
Review
The premise of a seemingly trivial event happening for reasons to be determined by the succession of events that follows it is hardly a revelation in filmmaking. 1998's Sliding Doors (starring Gwyneth Paltrow) serves as another example of a film whose basis is the gimmick of event-interrelation. Happenstance entangles so many occurrences into that gimmick, the results are truly dizzying. Distracted from any one particular story line by the mental preoccupation of trying to connect it with the rest, it is difficult not to feel as if completing a crossword puzzle, rather than watching a film. Characters earn their import by their relation to the events in the film -- none of them is fleshed out enough to earn much audience empathy -- and Amlie fans looking for more Audrey Tautou will be thrilled with little more than her adorable face. While performances do not detract from the film, they do not add much to it either, as the way in which a shopping bag left in the Metro relates to sand falling from the sky is paramount to any individual acting performance. An interesting experiment in coincidence, Happenstance would perhaps be best qualified for the action-genre, as character convictions come into play seldom, and the next random step in the progression of the story always seems to come in just the right moment. It never quite lives up to its romantic comedy classification, as there is little at stake for the characters. Being brought together by acts of "natural" serendipity makes closure on the three different love-story lines unnecessary -- but it is not as if the film provides it. ~ Sarah Sloboda, All Movie Guide
