Happy Accidents (2000)

Note:   This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

 

I suppose that everyone has had their share of strange ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends. Ruby Weaver seems to have had more than average. She seems to attract the weirdoes, like a heroine addict and someone with a foot fetish. Then, Sam Deed comes along. He finds Ruby while she’s reading in the park. The two start talking and it almost ends there. The thing is that she leaves her book on the bench; Sam returns it.

He seems like a normal guy from Dubuque, Iowa. He’s got a job as a caregiver for the elderly and doesn’t seem particularly interested in feet or illicit drugs. Ruby’s friends even like him. As time goes by, strange things start cropping up. Sam has no sense of popular music. He also can’t operate a record player to save his life. There’s even a bar code on his arm.

Ruby realizes that Sam may be in need of professional help when Sam starts claiming to be from the future. He claims to be from the year 2470 and even gives a rundown of history. Dubuque in his time will be on the Atlantic Coast. There are also gene dupes and no religion. He also calls asparagus pickles. The more Ruby finds out about Sam, the more she realizes that he’s not what he’s claiming to be.

I found this movie while looking for time-travel movies. Happy Accidents isn’t too heavy on the sci-fi angle. Instead, it’s more on the romance between Sam and Ruby and how they keep almost hitting it off. It’s sort of like K-PAX in that the main focus is on a few characters. As with Prot, you’re constantly wondering if Sam is a little crazy. You think that he may be telling the truth, but something always happens that makes you doubt the whole thing. For instance, Sam seems to have gotten his family pictures out of picture frames.

Those that don’t like time travel might be a little put off by that aspect of the movie, but really shouldn’t be. I think that it was a relatively minor point and actually worked well with Sam being just a little nutty. I think that a lot of science-fiction movies get a bad rap from people that are expecting flying saucers and little green men.

There was a sort of low-budget feel to the movie. It’s not that the scenes were poorly shot or that the acting was bad. In fact, one thing that made me rent it was that Vincent D’Onofrio and Marisa Tomei were in the movie. I think it was just an overall thing. I can’t place my finger on it. That’s not to say that the movie was bad. I thought it was actually very good. I’d actually give it five stars. I just can’t say that it’s for everyone.

IMDb page