This is the kind of movie that looks great for two minutes in a trailer but often ends up being awful when expanded to two hours.  But I'm a chick-flick kind of guy.  Add to that my intense love for John Cusack and the presence of an appealing Kate Beckinsale and I was at the theatre for date night with my girlfriend at my side.  And I'm happy to say that it was worth it.  This is a very enjoyable film that more than lived up to my expectations.  The New York Times felt that Serendipity was too sugary but once you accept that this is a romantic comedy and is bound to have a happy ending, you can just let yourself go along for the ride.  The story follows an unlikely set of coincidences that keep giving mixed signals to a couple of star-crossed would-be lovers (John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale).  They meet while Christmas shopping as they both try to snag the last pair of black, cashmere gloves on the rack.  After spending a romantic evening where the stars seem to be in their favor, the wind blows Beckinsale's phone number away indicating to her that the couple's destiny is in doubt.  So, as a test, she tells Cusack that she will write her name and number in a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera and sell it to one of the hundreds of used bookstores in New York City.  The choice of that particular book is poignant since it is about a guy who waits 50 years for the love of his life.  Cusack, in turn, writes his name and number on a five dollar bill which goes into circulation.  In the next scene, we jump several years ahead in time.  Cusack has not found the book and he is now engaged to someone else (Bridget Moynahan).   Meanwhile, Beckinsale has not found the five dollar bill, has moved to San Francisco and is getting engaged as well to a Zamfir-like musician (John Corbett).  But, yes, they are both still thinking about each other and the impending weddings impel both of them to renew their search for each other.  Cusack takes his best friend (Jeremy Piven) on a tour of used bookstores and Beckinsale drags her best friend (Molly Shannon) off for a weekend in New York.  Cusack and Beckinsale then proceed to wander around New York barely missing each other while realizing that they shouldn't be marrying their other, significant others.  This could have been annoying but it's really well done.  Cusack is great, as always, and this is a much better role for him than he had in America's Sweethearts.  Beckinsale is good too.  This seems a better role for her too than Pearl Harbor which I avoided seeing. I've only seen her once before in the flawed but interesting Brokedown Palace which was a bomb at the box office.  Jeremy Piven almost steals the film as Cusack's best friend.  In Serendipity, he an obit writer for the New York Times and plays this role with a kind of wild abandon.  He is one of Cusack's best friends in real life too.  Shannon brings a lot of her Saturday Night Live overacting to her part as the other best friend.  John Corbett, remembered fondly forever for his part as Chris in the Morning on Northern Exposure, gets another spacey part here as Beckinsale's erstwhile fiancé while Moynahan doesn't get to do much except look worried as the other fiancée.  Strangely, both have recently appeared on Sex and the City, Corbett as Sarah Jessica Parker's love interest and Moynahan and Big's wife.  I must mention Eugene Levy who takes a tiny role as the department store manager and makes it into one of his little gems.  And, of course, it's another film where you stare at scenes of the New York skyline wondering if they airbrushed out the World Trade Center.  The director (Peter Chelsom) and the writer (Marc Klein) haven't done much in the past but they managed to get it right here.  The script is good and the pacing is perfect.  This combined with the strong performances, particularly by Cusack and Piven, make Serendipity into, shall I say it, the feel good movie of the fall.