Were Kate Beckinsale in the role of an eccentric British expatriate Sara just a tad less desirable, we might wonder why John Cusack (playing the thirty-something Jonathan) would be willing to play along with her hard-to-get machinations. When the two young people meet while competing to buy a pair of black gloves featured on the rack at Bloomie's, they are attracted like magnets, but despite a magical evening together at an ice-cream parlor on E. 60th Street called Serendipity 3 and later blading on the ice at Rockfeller Center, Sara insists that fate decide their future. She writes her name and phone number in a novel, instructing Jonathan that she will sell the book and, if the pleasant suitor should happen to find it in a used book store, he may feel free to call her.

This is the sort of movie that used to open up about Christmastime before the year that December was reserved for major Oscar contenders. Indeed the sight of falling snow adds to the romantic allure of the picture and could make the folks who live in Southern Cal, Florida and Arizona a mite envious of their East Coast countrymen. The mood cast byMr. de Borman's lensing competes with Ms. Beckinsale herself for loveliness but as a story, "Serendipity" is too calculating, too bereft of any genuine accidents to be a fortuitous happening.