Chance meetings change their worlds
A new year has just started. It’s a time of year when people
reflect on things that went well, but more often think about the
things that went wrong during the last 12 months. It’s a time to
wonder what could have been, but wasn’t. Here are two films that
turn on the idea of what ifs when chance meetings make all the
difference.
Chance meetings change their worlds
A new year has just started. It’s a time of year when people reflect on things that went well, but more often think about the things that went wrong during the last 12 months. It’s a time to wonder what could have been, but wasn’t. Here are two films that turn on the idea of what ifs when chance meetings make all the difference.
Sliding Doors
In this 1998 film, Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a London woman who is fired from her public relations job. The story follows her on two parallel tracks for a year based on a seemingly meaningless event. In one scenario, Helen catches the train and heads home on the London Underground to the flat she shares with her boyfriend, Gerry. In the other, she just misses the train.
The Helen who catches the train makes the acquaintance of James (John Hannah). He tries to cheer her up when she tells him she lost her job.
He asks her if she knows what the Monty Python boys say. And she responds, “Always look on the bright side of life?” No, he says, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
James could not have been more right as Helen returns home early and catches her boyfriend in bed with another woman.
The other Helen heads to the surface where she tries to catch a taxi. She is mugged and injured. She heads to the hospital and tries calling her boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch) who doesn’t answer the phone. By the time she arrives home, the other woman has left and just a few signs of her are left that her boyfriend quickly explains away.
Director/writer Peter Howitt chooses to intermix the two stories so on a first viewing the film can be a bit confusing. Is this the Helen who caught the train or the one who didn’t? The problem is quickly solved when the Helen who catches the train and catches her boyfriend in bed with his ex gets a drastic haircut.
This Helen starts to spend time with James, who says sometimes someone falls into one’s life who is only meant to cheer them up. In addition to cheering Helen up, he encourages her to start her own public relations firm. Soon Helen is smiling and Gerry is an after thought for her. James seems to be able to make Helen believe the best of herself, though he has his own secret we discover at the end of the movie.
On the parallel track, the Helen who is still unaware of her boyfriend’s cheating ways finds herself with two part-time jobs. She is supporting Gerry while he writes a novel. While she is delivering sandwiches during the day and waiting tables at a bar at night, Gerry is still sneaking off to see his woman on the side, Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn.)
The format of the movie is interesting and makes it worth a watch. But more than that the idea that good people eventually get what they deserve is a nice moral for the new year. So even if last year was a struggle, good things could be on their way in 2008.
Once
This film written and directed by John Carney and set in modern-day Dublin gets off to a slow start. Glen Hansard plays a musician who is busking on Grafton Street. The first part of the movie is heavy on the singing and slow on the narrative, but for those willing to wait through the music it is worth a watch.
Hansard, whose character is nameless, plays well-known tunes during the day, but plays his own songs at night. He has wavy red hair and a gruff red beard. One night while he is playing, a young woman (Marketa Irglova) happens by and drops 10 cents into his guitar bag. He makes a disparaging comment to the woman who is selling “Big Issue” magazines on the street.
She speaks with a strong Czechoslovakian accent and asks if he only plays music for money. She suggests he get a job at a shop, and he says he has a job working at a vacuum cleaner repair shop. The next day, she shows up with a vacuum cleaner in need of repair. Either because of her struggle with the language or stubbornness, she ignores the singer’s brush off and they share lunch together. She shares her own musical background and finally he offers to fix her vacuum for her.
After a short misstep when he offends her by asking her to spend the night when they hardly know each other, the two connect over their music. The movie is not one where the couple ends happily together at the end, but their chance meeting changes both of them so that they are able to get what they really want out of life.
Both movies are worth a watch, though viewers will need to deal with the parallel stories in the first and the music in the second.
