Happy Accidents (2000)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Movies are often about the Climax or Ending, and this is no exception. The story is about the life of Ruby (Marissa Tomei) and Sam (Denofreo) and their on again off again romance. It was written and put together in a most intelligent way, that gets a viewer to a climactic ending. It clues the viewer in little by little until we get to the ending. Each clue opens your mind. Or one can take another look at the clues in a way that explains them differently. Like Ruby who is looking at a photograph in the climactic scene, on a certain intersection of two familiar streets, we are never certain of what we are dealing with...until the final shot in the movie... which is of that particular photograph, which puts the movie together and makes it clear to the viewer, as it did to Ruby.

Picked it up on a whim and was really glad I did. Am always a bit wary about movies who have that hand-held independent feel to them, so was bracing myself for something grainy, shaky, aggravating and surreal, with long-winded and disjointed diatribes, but it was far from that. Rather it was tight, smart, captivating and likable, with a fresh and elegant twist of romance, sci-fi and drama. A thinker's love story, if you will, and SUCH nice change from all the painfully dull, perfectly-coif-ed Jennifer Aniston-esque piles of cardboard crap. It even held my boyfriend spellbound for 2 hours, which was amazing, since he usually needs deNiro or Jason Statham to do that job. Of course you can rarely - if ever? - go wrong with d'Onofrio or Tomei, nor Holland Taylor or Nadja Dajani, and seeing them cast together was a huge draw. Great flick!

Happy Accidents begins like a typical chick flick. Allow me to sum up the first few minutes of the film. Women talk about their relationships and toss photos of their awful ex-boyfriend's into a box marked the Ex-files. Tomei throws a hissy fit every few minutes and acts like she severely needs Prozac. She's in therapy for her co-dependency, quotes what her therapist tells her to do, and recites affirmations to a mirror.I tried watching it with my boyfriend and we turned it off after 10 minutes because neither of us wanted to see an overly dramatic, nutcase whine for 90 minutes. I decided to try watching it on my own. I adored Next Stop Wonderland, so I wanted to see more from the same director/writer. Happy Accidents isn't as polished as Next Stop Wonderland and I was very surprised to find out it was made after Next Stop Wonderland.After the first 10 minutes the film gets very strange. It is definitely not a typical romantic comedy. All of sudden turns into a sci-fi movie about 15 minutes into the film. I knew nothing about the plot before watching it and I think that really helped my enjoyment. I can usually predict where a film is going, but not this one.The pace is a bit frenzied. Instead of exploring dating like in Next Step Wonderland, Happy Accidents focuses on one relationship. The film is actually quite funny. I convinced my boyfriend to give it a second try and he really liked it after the character Sam Deed enters the picture. Vincent D'Onofrio is perfect in the role and the script is very creative.The over-acting in the film is a bit over-the-top for my taste and there are some weak points in the plot, but Happy Accidents is really worth watching. Just know that it gets much better after the first 15 minutes.

I actually think this 2001 low-budget, indie film has a quirky charm that's hard to resist, and credit goes to director/writer/editor Brad Andersen's singular film-making style. It's ostensibly a contemporary love story between two misfits, but he laces the plot with science fiction elements that seem contrived at first until they start to affect the characters tangibly. The irony is that these far-fetched plot developments are what make the movie resonate emotionally. The two people at the center are Ruby Weaver, a single woman with an unfortunate track record of enabling men to meet her lowest expectations, and Sam Deed, a stranger from Dubuque who may be either mentally ill or a time traveler from the year 2470. Ruby is immediately drawn to Sam's sincerity but when he confesses to coming from the future, she inevitably feels like she is recycling old behavior by trying to save him from his delusions.It reminds me a bit of John Carpenter's 1984 "Starman" (where an alien takes the form of a woman's dead husband) and a touch of Hal Ashby's 1979 "Being There" (where an insulated gardener tries to make sense of the world around him). However, Anderson puts his own idiosyncratic stamp on the movie by making Sam's seemingly insane assertions credible and Ruby's attraction alternately frustrating and empathetic. The acting by the two leads helps considerably here. Suffering from premature Oscar ejaculation, Marisa Tomei has slowly recovered her acting credentials, and this performance is among her best as she dexterously brings out all the hesitation and vulnerability in Ruby. As Sam, Vincent D'Onofrio tempers his trademark intensity with a genuine sweetness that makes his child-like wonder believable. Holland Taylor effectively tones down her sassy persona to play Ruby's impervious therapist, while Tovah Feldshuh grounds the film with warmth and sensibility as Ruby's mother. The ending is clever with a nice use of stop-motion photography, even if it felt slightly derivative of the legendary "Star Trek" episode where Bones is stopped from saving a peace-loving missionary (played by Joan Collins, of all people) about to be killed. This one is more infectious than you may be assuming from the set-up.