Auggie sometimes reflects that if Ellen hadn't given him exact change on that sad morning, if any little thing at all had slowed her by a second, she would not have walked into the path of the bullet. Paul, too, has had his life changed. One day after buying his Te Amos at the store, he is walking absentmindedly down the street when he almost steps into the path of a truck. Rashid resists, but finally settles for a lemonade. What with one thing and another, Rashid eventually ends up living in Paul's apartment for a few days, to the indignation of Rashid's aunt, who doesn't understand the situation.
Life goes on.
Well, where yet another coincidence reveals that life does not unfold by plan, but by chance, often assisted by coincidence, irony and luck - both good and bad. The result sometimes feels contrived, as if the next revelation is being hauled in by its heels, but the writer, Paul Auster, and the director, Wayne Wang, find such a sweetness in the material and such grace in the actors that the movie weaves a spell. I wonder if I have seen any other actor in more movies in the last five years than Harvey Keitel. He works all the time, in big roles and small, and throughout his career, he has always made himself available for projects that are risky or experimental or just plain goofy. Here he is as the cigar store philosopher.