Plot synopsis
Helen is sacked from her job, so leaves work earlier than usual. At the train station, as she is running down the stairs to the platform, she bumps into a girl with a doll, which delays her by only a couple of seconds. Just before she gets to her train, the sliding doors close, causing her to have to wait for the next one.
Then, without explanation, time rewinds and we see Helen running down the stairs again. But this time, the girl with the doll is pulled out of the way by her mother. So, Helen gets to the sliding doors of the train just in time to board.
The story then continues with two parallel timelines. In one timeline she leaves her cheating boyfriend and ends up in a loving relationship with James, the man she met on the train. In the other, she is returns home later, so doesn’t find out that her boyfriend has another lover until near the end of the film.
She experiences some parallel events, for example in both lives, she ends up in hospital after suffering a life-threatening injury, while being pregnant. In one life, Helen dies, and James is distraught; while in the other, she survives the accident, but the baby does not. She tells her boyfriend to leave her for good.
Later, the nurse tells her she had a lucky escape, and she replies, “You can say that again!” On her way out of the hospital, the sliding doors of the elevator close just as she arrives. However, the person inside opens them, and she steps inside to meet James for the first time in this timeline.
My comments
The parallel timelines are similar in some ways and not in others. When Helen feels dizzy and nearly faints in one timeline, the same happens in the other.
Another example is when in one timeline, she is on the River Thames watching a boat race. In the other, she is walking by the river with a friend when says she knew there would be a boat race on The River Thames that day.
Helen died in the second timeline that had branched off from the original. It is not clear if the whole world had split into two parallel timelines or if only her personal timeline had split.
If the latter is the case, then the timeline ending with her death was only a temporary tangential timeline. More is written about these in Donnie Darko (2002).
When she meets James in the elevator at the end, he asks her a Monty Python question. She surprises him by giving him the answer, which she had learned from him in the other timeline.
So, like Donnie Darko, it seems she had retained some memory from the tangential timeline, even if only sub-conscious. We are left with the impression that they will go on to form the loving relationship that was foreshadowed on her other timeline.
Summary of time travel
Time rewinds itself by only a few seconds, but it is enough to show us a different past, which leads to a different future, so both are open, but the two timelines exist in parallel.
Category of time travel
Fantasy: unexplained.
Model of time
Open past, open future with a parallel timeline.
