SERENDIPITY
(2001, 85 minutes, PG-13)

Are you reading this Reel Spirit review by fate or by chance? Does your action have great life-enhancing meaning or is it a frivolous, random diversion?

These questions suggest the spiritually significant questions raised by the film Serendipity: Namely, are our lives controlled by fate or destiny, or are we creatures of completely random acts?

Friends of the two central characters describe the conflicting viewpoints. One friend says that life is part of "an exquisite, sublime plan." Another says, "Life is a mess, Sara. It's chaos personified."

Which perspective is right?

Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) definitely believes in fate or destiny. Jon Trager (John Cusack) probably has never thought about fate--until he meets Sara, whom he calls a "strange and interesting woman," at Bloomingdale's one Christmas season. He's the sort who has just lived his life and is not bothered to ponder the whys and wherefores.

Sara: You don't have to understand. You just have to have faith.

Jon: In what?

Sara: In destiny.

The premise of this enjoyable romantic film written by Marc Klein is that serendipity—one of Sara's favorite words--and fate are important in life, and that we are in step with our true purpose in life only when we follow the signs that fate offers.

To Sara and others who believe in life being controlled by a cosmic or spiritual destiny, serendipity is a sign of fate. Sara calls serendipity a "fortunate accident." Webster's defines serendipity as "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." Most people probably would agree that life is filled with occasions of "finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." The issue, however, is whether or not these consciously unsought things are brought to us by fate or by chance.

Sara definitely believes that fate is behind serendipity. Concerning her meeting Jon, Sara says, "It was like the whole universe existed just to bring us together."

But Sara carries her belief in fate to an extreme. She likes to test fate. She and Jon part, supposedly leaving fate to decide if they are to be together and to determine if they are "soul mates." "If we're meant to meet again, we will," Sara says.

As events in the film demonstrate, to benefit from serendipity and signs of destiny, one must be observant and aware and completely open to constantly seeing the bigger picture in our lives.

It's how we read the signs that determine our lives, Sara believes. Serendipitous things keep happening to both Sara and Jon that remind them of each other.

Sometimes the signs are there, but we don't notice them. In Jon, the film gives us a character who becomes transformed by paying more attention to the signs—to the point that he finally understands that "the universe keeps revealing itself to me."

Like Sara obsessing about the workings of fate, Jon starts obsessing about the meaning of signs. "Maybe the absence of signs is a sign," he says. And "maybe all of this is just a maze designed to lead me back where I started." In their obsessions, both Sara and Jon bring up another question: Don't we humans often try to analyze life too much, rather than just being and being aware?

Often finding and knowing the signs simply come down to being intuitive, to following our intuition or inner guidance. "It's not an exact science," Sara tells Jon. "It's a feeling."

Ultimately, it is their feelings and passions that lead the characters to their destiny.

Do Sara and Jon get together? Well, of course. They have to, we want them to, we expect them to. We'd feel cheated if they didn't--that's the nature of such fate-ful romances. Just ask fans of When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Only You.

Characters in such stories searching for their soul mates and destiny are fulfilling an archetypal quest for completion and wholeness. That's why there have been Saras and Jons throughout the world's myths, fairy tales, and fine literature. Their stories are Everyperson's stories of connecting with others to find our essential oneness. Their stories illustrate our need to remember together.

A Course in Miracles states, "Let me remember I am one with God, At one with all my brothers and my Self, In everlasting holiness and peace." These seemingly innocuous romances of fate point the way to a mighty Truth.

HEARTS IN ATLANTIS
(2001, 101 minutes, PG-13)

Ah, childhood -- that golden period of life that many adults tend to idealize as a magical, mythical time of bliss and discovery. Like our own personal Atlantis.

But Atlantis, if it existed, was probably a place of vast contradictions, like our present world and true-to-life childhoods. Atlantis probably wasn't all magic.

Childhoods usually aren't all magic, either, although many people nostalgically remember their own childhoods as being better than they were. Our childhood Atlantises could have been rising, shining, or sinking--or all of the above--but those formative years retain a powerful hold over us and affect our psyche for life.

In mature reflection, there frequently comes wonder that we made it through our Atlantean childhoods at all. In truth, childhood may have been a lonely, painful, frustrating time. But over the years our memories become wrapped up in ideal Norman Rockwell sentiments and pictures of childhood. We wonder now how our hearts came out of it at all. Sometimes they come out scared and damaged for this earthly go-round. Some hearts are strong enough to make it through without much help. For others, there has to be considerable help--hearts that join.

A wonder of childhood is that often people do show up in our lives who give us the added strength or initiative or faith to make it. These pivotal helpers may be parents or strangers. Perhaps they are literally angels; they certainly are figurative angels.

In my own life, that angel was "Aunt Ruthie," a babysitter to whom I was taken when I was three years old who became the guiding light of my childhood and whose values have been the foundation of my adulthood. Maturation stories (both books and movies) are full of childhood's guiding lights. Movies containing such characters that immediately come to mind include To Kill a Mockingbird, My Dog Skip, Mary Poppins, Auntie Mame, and The Mighty.

In Hearts in Atlantis, eleven-year-old Bobby Garfield (Anton Yelchin), who lives with his divorced and self-absorbed mother, Liz (Hope Davis) in a Connecticut town in 1960, has two main guiding lights whose influence on his entire life never dim. These are Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins), a mysterious loner who rents the upstairs apartment in the house where Bobby and his mother live, and Carol Gerber (Mika Boorem), a neighborhood friend, soul mate, and first love with whom he shares a kiss that Ted foresees will be the kiss by which all other kisses will be judged.

Ted possesses psychic powers, including the ability to read minds and see into the future. Somehow Ted's ESP gifts transfer to Bobby during the time of their acquaintance. While the supernatural element is interesting (if nothing else as another example that such powers do exist) and at times eerie in this story based on a Stephen King book, it's not particularly relevant in terms of the importance of Ted to Bobby. Ted is a source of love and strength to Bobby, and he could have been that even without his special powers. Bobby needs someone to care about him, to pay attention to him and his interests and dreams, and to give him a "can-do" attitude and some worthwhile directions about life; Ted appears in Bobby's life as that person.

The adult Bobby recalls that Ted opened "my eyes and let the future in." In other words, Ted's caring and interest give Bobby the vision to better understand himself, his friends, his mother, his deceased father, his world, and his potential and possibilities in the world. Ted gets Bobby reading classic literature, seeing possibilities in relationships, and being more sensitive to the events around him and the feelings within himself.

Clearly, Ted, for all his mystery, brooding and fear (he often says "wishing can't make it so" and once ominously proclaims "I'm worried for us all"), is a sort of angel for Bobby.

Another angelic figure for Bobby--and one who looks the part--is Carol. Ted describes her as having "the heart of a lion." She also has a natural rapport with Bobby, and her innocent love and faith in him help to alleviate his loneliness and lack of self-worth.

Ted perhaps passes on to Bobby his own impressions of childhood. Ted says that childhoods can have moments of magic, but "then we grow up and our hearts break in two." Certainly the adult Bobby's impressions of his childhood are memories of both magic and heartbreak.

The adult Bobby muses, "Ted got it right. It isn't all Atlantis," referring to the concept of childhood being only magical. There are other dimensions to Atlantis, as there are other dimensions to childhood. And in the end, well, nothing is permanent in the physical realm, not Atlantis, not childhood, nothing.

Ted tells Bobby, "We're all just passing through, kiddo. Just passing through, that's all."

But Ted makes a huge difference as he passes through Bobby's life. With this story, we are prompted to think about those who made differences in our own childhoods, and to consider how we can make positive differences in the lives of children now. We can put our "hearts in Atlantis" and realize that the present-day Atlantis is a multifaceted, often difficult world desperately in need of more love.

Raymond Teague is the author of Reel Spirit: A Guide to Movies That Inspire, Explore and Empower, from Unity House. He is an award-winning journalist, an editor of spiritual publications, a popular New Thought speaker, and a lifelong movie buff. His book is available at bookstores; on-line at amazon.com, bn.com, borders.com, and by phone at
1 (800) 669-0282.