Rating: 
Summary: Not as great as I had hoped.
Review: I loved Audrey Tautou in Amelie and like many people, had pretty high expectations for this movie. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed. While Tautou was great, the movie was slow and I was bored. The story just wasn't as riveting or enjoyable as I had hoped. My friend's DVD player was on the fritz and we had problems watching the movie, so we ended up skipping ahead to the last chapter to see what the outcome was. After all the slowness, the end was predictable.
Rating: 
Summary: Good movie
Review: I rented this film as a project for my french class. I had perviously watched Amelie and chose this film based on my like of Audrey Tautou as an actress. I thought this movie was good. It dragged a little bit towards the middle/end, but when it was over and you could see how each situation and character effected the overall outcome, the ending is classic French!
Rating: 
Summary: Simply Marvelous!
Review: I thought that this film was an artistic masterpiece! Audrey Tautou was wonderful. The film moved about smoothly, keeping the viewer entertained, amused and intrigued. The very concept of the movie really leaves the viewer thinking about the whole meaning of the word coincidence. Very French, very well done-a movie that won't easily escape one's mind!
Rating: 
Summary: Weird Movie!
Review: I usualy like french movie but this one doesn't make sence. It got to many little stories that doesn't really had an end to it. The only good thing in this movie is the french atmostphere but beside that it's not a interesting movie.
Rating:
Summary: Audrey.....je taime
Review: If you love Audrey Tautou, you'll enjoy this movie. I'll spare you the plot summary...just buy, rent, borrow or steal this movie. Trust me.
**reviewer hereby absolves himself from any responsibility and all consequences resulting from readers actually stealing this movie. Thou shalt not steal.
Rating:
Summary: The Beating of a Butterfly's WIng
Review: In France, Laurent Firode's "Happenstance" was released as "Le Battement d'Aile du Papillon" or "The Beating of a Butterfly's Wing." The saying goes: if a butterfly flutters his wings over the Atlantic Ocean it could eventually cause a hurricane in the Pacific. With this in mind, Firode set upon making a film in which the seemingly smallest "happenstance" can cause untold reprecussions; not only in lives per se but also in circumstances and situations.
The French have a unique perspective on life and love. Think "Venus Beauty Institute," "Amelie," "Get out your handkerchiefs," anything by Eric Rohmer or Francois Truffaut....and now "Happenstance," a romantic comedy with a number of chracters who pretty much, all in one way or another, come in contact with the other. It's like a smart, wryly humorous "Magnolia."
Audrey Tautou (Irene), so endearing in "Amelie," is part of a thoroughly diverse ensemble of actors and it is her first scene in the film that sets it in motion: she is approached on the Metro by a woman conducting a survey on shampoos(!) but who states her real forte is telling horoscopes. She asks Irene her birthdate which happens to be 3/11/77. The woman points out that as a full moon is imminent, Irene will find her true love that very day. After Irene de-metros slightly dazed and frankly skeptical, a young man, Younes (Faudel) tells the woman that 3/11/77 is also his birthdate. You don't have to be a genius or a Robert Altman fan to know that these two will meet again...some way, some how...before night falls.
A number of characters are introduced, all with love problems and relationship issues that somehow, and this is the magic of Firode's direction, resolve themselves logically or not by the film's end; nevermind that a "Destiny Man" is introduced (Gilbert Robin) to comment as well as help the proceedings along.
"Happenstance" ( a terrible title, by the way) is about Fate and Chance and Luck; and how we, as poor vulnerable, feeling human beings avail ourselves of these things to nab...whatever bit of Love and Happiness, the real things of Value, that we can.
Rating:
Summary: The Beating of a Butterfly's WIng
Review: In France, Laurent Firode's "Happenstance" was released as "Le Battement d'Aile du Papillon" or "The Beating of a Butterfly's Wing." The saying goes: if a butterfly flutters his wings over the Atlantic Ocean it could eventually cause a hurricane in the Pacific. With this in mind, Firode set upon making a film in which the seemingly smallest "happenstance" can cause untold reprecussions; not only in lives per se but also in circumstances and situations.
The French have a unique perspective on life and love. Think "Venus Beauty Institute," "Amelie," "Get out your handkerchiefs," anything by Eric Rohmer or Francois Truffaut....and now "Happenstance," a romantic comedy with a number of chracters who pretty much, all in one way or another, come in contact with the other. It's like a smart, wryly humorous "Magnolia."
Audrey Tautou (Irene), so endearing in "Amelie," is part of a thoroughly diverse ensemble of actors and it is her first scene in the film that sets it in motion: she is approached on the Metro by a woman conducting a survey on shampoos(!) but who states her real forte is telling horoscopes. She asks Irene her birthdate which happens to be 3/11/77. The woman points out that as a full moon is imminent, Irene will find her true love that very day. After Irene de-metros slightly dazed and frankly skeptical, a young man, Younes (Faudel) tells the woman that 3/11/77 is also his birthdate. You don't have to be a genius or a Robert Altman fan to know that these two will meet again...some way, some how...before night falls.
A number of characters are introduced, all with love problems and relationship issues that somehow, and this is the magic of Firode's direction, resolve themselves logically or not by the film's end; nevermind that a "Destiny Man" is introduced (Gilbert Robin) to comment as well as help the proceedings along.
"Happenstance" ( a terrible title, by the way) is about Fate and Chance and Luck; and how we, as poor vulnerable, feeling human beings avail ourselves of these things to nab...whatever bit of Love and Happiness, the real things of Value, that we can.
Rating:
Summary: How individual choice affects the lives of others
Review: In the middle of Happenstance, aka Le Battement d'Aile du Papillon, (The Fluttering of a Butterfly's Wings), the bald-headed man of destiny, a mysterious man gifted with precognition, tells a man throwing pebbles and hitting a weird metallic sculpture in a park, to deliberately miss it. He does. What happens? Richard, a man sitting nearby at the bench opposite, decides not to tell his lover that he's told his wife about them. The point is that every insignificant action, however small, affects the course of everyone else, with people choosing one of an infinite number of choices, like a parallel universe where each universe is different because of a variation in choice. Does this mean then that we can change history, or that we can shape it? It all goes back to chaos theory, with that famous example of how a butterfly's wings fluttering eventually cause a hurricane.Laurent Firode's creative and philosophical debut film examines that theme via a plethora of characters, who affect the destiny of other people without knowing it. Take Richard. He has decided to leave his wife and child and settle down with his lover. Trouble is, he's indecisive and weak to the point that he makes his decisions based on what other people do. At a cafe, he looks at Luc at a nearby table and decides if Luc eats his chocolate, he will tell his wife he's leaving her. He might as well ask someone to flip a coin for him, but he's too afraid to do that. And Luc, one of the more interesting people here, is a man of thirty, still being cared for by his mother, immature and a man of inaction. He just sits there at a metro bench as a bum collapses from illness. A Moroccan or Algerian berates him for not doing anything and is arrested for attacking a policeman at that subway. He's taken before Luc's mother! Luc though, has a penchant for being inactive, and later, telling people he did positive things other people did, or reversing roles so that he's the more important person. Audrey Tautou, star of Amelie, doesn't have much screen time, but her salesclerk character, Irene, is a more brooding character, whose day, which begins with a woman telling her horoscope, that she will meet her true love. However, something happens to her involving a red-jacketed man who not only meets Luc's grandmother, returning a broken coffee machine, but who has previously met Luc and Richard. Unknown to her, a young Algerian business owner has the luck to have been born the same day as Irene. And guess what having the same horoscope means for the two? Think of many dots, each representing a person, and lines that connect the dots. One can thus form an indirect link from Person A to Person B, whether the path be two degrees of separation, A-C-B or seven A-H-E-L-C-G-F-B. But it makes one wonder is it choice or luck that shapes one's life? Firode makes it clear that predestination is not involved, but that it's an individual choice that shape that individual's destiny and that of others, like a rock thrown into a pool--the larger the rock, the larger the ripples, the larger the consequences. A thought-provoking film that bears watching over and over.
Rating:
Summary: Deeds & Consequences
Review: Irène (Audrey Tautou) sits on the subway on her way to work when a woman reads her horoscope and tells her that she will find her love today if she is patient. Meanwhile, there are numerous actions taken by many characters like a pick pocket thief, a roommate, an ex-boyfriend, a cheating husband, a nervous wife, a drunk biker, a senile grandmother, an illegal alien, a bar tender, a pigeon, and many others. These actions effect other events taking place in the city of Paris where Irène lives and they will lead Irène to her love. Happenstance is an appealing film about the random deeds that humans choose to do everyday and how these acts ripple through society influencing the individuals living in it.
Rating:
Summary: Let It Happen To You!
Review: It seems the butterfly effect is alive and dancing in Paris as portrayed in this sweet French film.
Audrey Tautou is her usual brilliant self as a young girl who sets out on a Metro one day, for work, only to have her entire life change because of the actions of other people. Tautou loses her job and the day spirals into more of the same leaving her deflated and without hope, but on her way out of Paris things begin to change and another great French film is born.
This film is filled with a cast of interesting characters who manage to change and shape the lives of the strangers around them. A dirty bum falls at someone's feet, a married man bases his decision to tell his wife on a skipping stone, chocolate and coffee even have their own distinct roles.
Mixed within all of the sweetness of this film is the subtle message of cause and affect. In the matter of a day each and every person causes a reaction based upon their own actions. It is an interesting concept to ponder because it shows how the world is tied together as one whether we like it or not. But the best thing about this movie is that it conveys the fact that even on our worst days, where nothing seems to go right, we all have something interesting waiting for us around the bend and under the watchful eye of a bright full moon that shines the world over.
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