"Happy Accidents" is a weird little movie about the power of love, wrapped in a very heavy sci-fi metaphor about backward time travel. Made in 1999 and unveiled at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, this film has taken its own sweet time traveling to movie theaters.
Sam Deed (Vincent D'Onofrio) appears to be an ordinary schmo, working as a caretaker of old people in Manhattan. In the park, he meets Ruby Weaver (Marisa Tomei), a failed telephone operator and multiple loser in the sweepstakes of romance. They fall in love, and soon Deed reveals his deepest secret – he's really on the lam from the year 2470, having traveled backward in time to find her and "break the causal chain" in which she dies in an accident.
Vincent D'Onofrio and Marisa Tomei star in "Happy Accidents."
(IFC Films)
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So Weaver has to decide whether to believe him, or – as every rational sign indicates – write him off as a psycho. Back and forth they go, over and over. Is he a liar? Or is she afraid of trust and intimacy? If you give your heart, can it save your life?
The two stars are the main point of interest here, although this film, written and directed by Brad Anderson, will end up in the "minor" category in their biographies. D'Onofrio, who has been both hero and menace in films like "Men in Black," "Full Metal Jacket" and "The Cell," is about to vie for television stardom in the newest "Law & Order" spinoff, "Criminal Intent."
Tomei's career has been erratic since she won an Oscar for "My Cousin Vinny" in 1993 and she clearly saw this as a role in which she could star instead of just support.
The actors make a good team in this film, and they're playing well-defined characters, but the script is so repetitive that we get mighty impatient for the mystery to be resolved.
HAPPY ACCIDENTS (105 minutes, R) – contains some foul language. At the Cineplex Odeon Janus 3 and Cinema Arts Fairfax.
