Only the most adventuresome filmgoers will be patient and open-minded enough to follow the zigzags and outrageous leaps of whimsy in this romantic comedy written, directed, and produced by Brad Anderson (Next Stop Wonderland). But, rest assured, those who go with the flow will be amply rewarded in the end.
Ruby (Marisa Tomei) is an English teacher and a proverbial loser in her relationships with men. Her friends have a box marked "Ex-Files" containing photos of the bozos she has dated over the years. Her therapist (Holland Taylor) is trying to help Ruby pull out of a cycle of co-dependency.
When she meets Sam (Vincent D'Onofrio), a hospital worker from Dubuque, Iowa, Ruby is convinced that he's different from the rest of her boyfriends — funny, sensitive, and kind. Only problem is, he seriously claims to be an emissary from the year 2470 whose destiny is to make Ruby happy.
That's fine and dandy but some of Sam's eccentricities are a little hard to take — he falls into trances, he's really scared of small dogs, he's got a bar code tattooed on his arm, he speaks five languages, and the stories he tells about his family are totally inconsistent. Things really get weird when Sam tells Ruby that she's going to die next Friday.
Ruby soon finds that her lover is driving her crazy. Not having much confidence in her ability to make wise decisions in relationships, she turns to her mother (Tovah Feldshuh) and her best friend (Nadia Dajani) for advice. In the end, Ruby has to decide on her own whether Sam is psychotic or a wildly inventive fellow.
By introducing the theme of time travel into this romance, Brad Anderson opens up new doors in the evolving relationship between Sam and Ruby. Eventually these two losers in love are brought to a point where they must take a leap into the dark and trust each other implicitly. Not an easy assignment for either one of them. Happy Accidents mirrors the zany maneuvers that many of us must undergo in order to find "the one and only" person for us.