Brilliant and touching

As Good As It Gets

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is a BBC production, so the technical aspects are as good as ever from the BBC, with good acting, sound, editing, lighting, etc. Sadly, the script lets the whole thing down, followed by direction that seems to insist on providing a glacial pace.Alternate reality Science Fiction where a research scientist is mysteriously shifted from one universe into another parallel universe where much of his life has changed. Instead of exploring the scientific aspects of the swap, and comparing the differences between the universes, most of the film is taken up with creating/rekindling a relationship between the man and his wife in the alternate reality. It's sort of a Time Travellers Wife situation, or an amnesiac trying to reintegrate himself into his life.And all of this happens at glacial speed.So, drop the science fiction aspect, give the man amnesia and the story works just as well, and just as boringly. This film isn't about exploring the possibility of alternate realities, it's a film about ruined relationships and trying to piece them back together again.If I wanted to sum this film up I'd say - Not As Advertised.If you want a slightly surreal amnesiac romance story watch this film. If you want some decent science fiction, try watching The Terminator again.

"Random Quest," based on a John ("Day of the Triffids") Wyndham science fiction parallel universes yarn, shows the BBC at its not-quite top- drawer. Here a so-so love story is made to trump an ingenious fictional study of Einsteinian paradoxes. One of the problems is the actor Sam West. His sluggish portrayal of the chief character is a nice demonstration of human entropy. He starts off so boring as to nearly vanish from the scene and winds up as one of those British vacuum cleaners marketed in infomercials, sucking most of the air and substance out of this romantic science fiction drama and turning it into a two-dimensional "Flatland." The rest of the cast performs adequately, but nobody seems to have really tried to make a difference. There is an attempt at an interesting walk-and-talk discussion of quantum mechanics, but that stops in mid-track. Much of the action takes place in a very modern home that sports a long and narrow basement swimming pool and a cramped closet-like bedroom. At first apparently quite striking, the home reveals itself to be an awkward space more like a very contemporary shop window than a house. If you're interested in how a talented cast and director can breathe life into a story about alternate realities, you only have to watch an episode of "Fringe." Otherwise, there's no parallel.

Colin is a research scientist who is working at a nuclear reactor as part of a team trying to simulate a black hole. The experiment goes wrong and the next thing he knows, Colin wakes up in bed in a white room in a strange house. Next thing he knows his "wife" has come home and he is dealing with calls from people he does not know. The few he does recognise seem to not know him in the way that that he thinks he knows them. Although it is a jump to get there, Colin concludes that the black hole experiment has forced him into a parallel universe and that his alternative has gone somewhere else. While this mystifies him, Colin also enjoys his new life and starts to build on it.I'll be honest and say that when I read about parallel universes and jumping around between them I had expected more from it than this film delivered in the sci-fi realm. It doesn't really explore the concept from the sci-fi point of view but it does do it from a character point of view. This side takes the form of a sort of romantic plot where Colin tries to build a life in his parallel world while also figuring out what has actually happened. It is not as fascinating as it should have been though and discussions over the theory are mostly superficial and not followed through. What it does do well though is give interesting characters and a structure that suggests more mystery than there actually is. The ending is a "nice" conclusion but it is not that clever or impacting The writing does do a good job of building the characters and they are brought out well. West takes the lead pretty well and seems more comfortable with the story inside his character's head than the sci-fi element. Parkes is good in support but it was Ashfield's turn that made the emotional core of the story work – she was convincing even as her character changed. As director Watson does a good job of it and the locations were well chosen and delivered (how much for that house?! Probably too much…).Overall though I did struggle to overcome the disappointment that the central sci-fi concept was not worked for more benefit. The relationship side of it did provide interest but it was not quite enough on its own and I would have appreciated more of the sci-fi worked into it; as it was it could easily have lost the parallel world aspect and still worked as a story about marriage being rebuilt.

This is a beautifully acted BBC drama. A neat twist on one of the standard plots: the boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then boy finds girl again. In this version the man finds that he is married to a woman who his 'twin' has taken for granted and falls in love with her only to lose her temporarily. The acting can best be seen in the way that Sam West and Kate Ashfield behave towards each other: firstly in a marriage that is on the rocks and a few weeks later in a marriage in which they are in love. I defy anyone not to say 'Aaah' at the ending and to have a smile on their face. The supporting cast, especially David Burke, were entirely realistic and well-judged.The script has a few holes which I quickly forgave. No-one is going to land on Jupiter. Colin also claims that history began to diverge in the 1980's and yet the death of Kate Gales's father in 1974 showed that it had already diverged there. These are minor quibbles. All in all it is a good illustration of why we pay the BBC's licence fee. Mercifully there is no spin-off series.