"Happenstance" is the most New York-feeling Parisian film I've seen since "When the Cat's Away (Chacun cherche son chat). "<br /><br />A film from last year released now to capitalize on the attention Audrey Tatou is getting for "Amelie," its French title is more apt: "Le Battement d'ailes du papillon (The Beating of the Butterfly's Wings)" as in summarizing chaos theory as a controlling element in our lives.<br /><br />Tatou's gamine-ness is less annoying here because she only occasionally flashes that dazzling smile amidst her hapless adventures, and because she's part of a large, multi-ethnic ensemble, so large that it took me a long time to sort out the characters, especially as some of the cute guys and older women looked alike to me, and some of the characters fantasize what they should do such that I wasn't sure if they were doing that or not. <br /><br />But I loved how urban the coincidences were, from immigrants to love nests to crowded subway cars to hanging around cafés.<br /><br />The subtitles quite annoyingly gave both parts of a dialog at once.<br /><br />(originally written 12/8/2001)