MartinHafer This isn't exactly a great film, but I admire the writers and director for trying something a little different. The film's main theme is fate and small, seemingly insignificant things that can greatly change the future. In some ways this reminds me of the film SLIDING DOORS, though instead of focusing on one random event, seemingly random stuff happens repeatedly and each one helps build to the cute conclusion. Plus, an odd bald guy seems to understand all this and he talks about this during one brief scene--like he's some sort of omnipotent being but there's absolutely no explanation of him in the film (like the two guys that fight each other in the clock tower in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY).The DVD jacket shows just Audrey Tautou. This is capitalize on her success in AMELIE, though she is only one of many actors in the film and there is no one starring role. The pace is brisk, the acting fine and the conclusion isn't bad at all. The only reason I didn't score it higher is that some of the characters were a bit uninteresting and I think the movie could have perhaps been tightened up with a few less subplots.

ThurstonHunger An admirable attempt that winds up about as charming and magical as calculating a checksum. Still to create a "love story" wherein the main characters never speak to each other was an interesting feat. Ultimately I got the sense that the director didn't want us to attach to any one character too much for fear that we would lose track of the plight and the path of the cosmic pinball connecting them all.Other films have traced the vagaries of existence, I'll never forget "Slacker" and its camera-as-transmittable-disease approach. That film, and others had characters that drew you in with more than a powerful pout and a pop star. Also the idiots in that film were more reckless than wretched. Here we have some despicable folks...One of them is, pardon my (lack of) french, a dick. Indeed that is how he is introduced to us, full frontal and head on. We've also got a heartless mother, a selfish roommate, a compassionless store clerk, a petty thief and a liar. Well at least the liar does have a bit of reckoning, and provides some humor along the way. At various points in the film, popular methods of charting the fates are engaged. A horoscope, tarot cards, a palm reading, a strange scrambling of the letters of a name, I don't think there were any tea leaves to be read. These methods are generally dismissed, but the intricate criss-crossing of the crasser crowd does help to guide our stars towards a more star-crossed pairing. Will they meet or miss by the width of a butterfly's wing??More importantly, will the audience care? At the end of the film, I found myself more intrigued by a bald character who we meet during another game of chance in a park (when "le penis" stakes his actions to the toss of a pebble). His bald comments and clear voicing of intention make him stand out like a lucid dream.What the hell is he doing? Is his act of volition meant to taunt us, the invisible voyeurs in every scene? Or is he god...not playing dice with the universe, but loading the pebble? I'm afraid I'm making this film seem more interesting than it was...the battle of will versus fate versus karma versus various crystal balls, like the depth of the characters never quite gets to the foreground.But perhaps by my not enjoying this film so much, I will not tip as much the next time I go out to eat, so your roommate will come home in a crabby mood, so you'll not go out to the Bottom of the Hill together, instead you'll rent a movie from the bald incarnation of Zeus at your local video store who *intentionally* will slip this DVD into the "Slacker" box you thought you were going to rent.And you'll love it...But in case that doesn't happen...5/10

Thom Do you know about the Butterfly Effect? Sure you do. Jeff Goldblum explained it in Jurassic Park: "A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking, and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine." As one might guess from the title itself, Happenstance is all about randomness and chance. It details how the tiniest of events can lead to a particular outcome--in this case, the uniting of two soulmates.Happenstance adheres strictly to its philosophy, perhaps to a fault. The film skips from person to person in what is quite a large ensemble cast, itemizing how each of them contributes to the system. Due to the intricacies of details involved, in order to bring the audience to the "main" characters' resolution, it fails to follow up on supporting players, many of whom shared as much screen time as the leads. As a result, audiences might be left with more questions than what answers the ending provides. This might be solved by extending the length of the film to follow the other characters, but Happenstance borders on sluggishness at 90 minutes. Still, because of the film's constant reverence to its notions of chance and fate, it leaves us with a sense of faith that "happenstance" will come to everyone in their own turn.With such a large cast, it's surprising that there seem to be no weak links among them.We get to see a different side of Audrey Tautou's spectrum than the naive, wide-eyed dreamer we're familiar with... Here, she's a bit cynical, certainly a realist, and at times, rather self-centered. Her eyes and head hang a little low, and the pixie we watched in Amélie practically disappears. As with He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, this film is not a great challenge to her acting abilities, but she provides a simple role with solid performance.The same can be said with all the cast, though it's a bit challenging to match actors' names with the characters' faces. They each play his or her role evenly, with a unique and distinguishable set of strengths and weaknesses.Such characterization was obviously well thought out by Laurent Firode, who wrote and directed Happenstance. He does a magnificent job at characterization, and one wonders how great he might do with a film focused on two or three main characters. His visual style, while not overpowering, also contributes greatly to the presentation of detail in the film.Don't rent this expecting Audrey Tautou in every scene, but if you wish to sample some more of her acting, or if you're just interested in an intelligent foreign film, Happenstance should leave you happy.

jimg-9 How do you spell "sux" in French? How about "snore"? Even "Magnolia" was better than this tripe (another French delicacy, by the way) and it was about 3 hours too long. But that's another topic for another day. PS if you see this just to see "Amelee" (Audrey Tautou) forget it > she's only onscreen for about 1/2 an hour.