First we shall consider that's an European movie and hence a B movie ( budget etc ). However A few dialogues are just A+ ( like the final Vic-Sylvia dialogue under the rain and the frantic dialogue Vic-Sylvia in the beginning, when he tries to hide his affair ). Other scenes are A+: when Vic comes back endlessly to the pub, waiting to meet the woman he had (probably?) met in another time zone...finally he does...and he finds somebody else at his (supposed) place, playing his (supposed) role... Those scenes give great vibes if you can understand the character's state of mind. In the end, what the main character considers a spell, ultimately turns to his utmost advantage ( he gets a new, charming woman who loves him & turn from bum to award winning TV star ). A great lesson for those into it. A lesson imparted with modest means, yet to the point, even without wooden Hollywood A+ actors, sex scenes & billionaire budget shot in Africa or Himalaya. Someone made a reference to Henshall as a poor man's Ewan Mac Gregor...In this film he's much better than the shifting Macgregor pathetically trying to mimic Alec Guinness in the War of the clones.

I wouldn't rent this movie. It's a complete wasting of time. Like a vacuum, the movie message just keeps sucking. The writer is persistently shifting the burden of his own psychological problems onto the audience's shoulders, and casually trying to push his old-fashioned beliefs of a 'fate' stuff into your mouth. Behaviour of protagonists is far from being natural, and everything rings hollow. Obviously, no one really loves anyone in this sombre dismal performance. (I actually have to add something, despite the fact that I said all. The reason of it is there is a requirement of 10 lines of the text as a minimum length for comments. I think this is not in a fair and good spirit of a web-site to make such a requirement since it violates the freedom of expression, like, I personally think I've already said what I wanted to say bout the film. ...Well, after I added this flame, I suppose there will be 'nuff lines to finally display my modest comment on the movie.)

This is a movie that has earned repeated viewings. A great pick-me-up or a wonderful "date" movie. My friends are wild about the world music soundtrack, Penelope Cruz is at her mousy best, and the feelings and situations are real... the magic is the gravy. Reminiscent of Groundhog Day and Sliding Doors. Yes, definitely reminiscent of those two movies.

1st watched 10/9/2001 - 8 out of 10(Dir-Maria Ripoll): Compelling romantic fantasy which keeps you interested all the way to the end. Believable characters played by little known British actors with Penelope Cruz playing the love interest near the end of the Movie. The story is basically about love gone bad, but is given a second chance by some interesting characters at a junkyard similar to the theme of the TV show `Twice in a Lifetime.' What is different in this movie is that we are never quite sure who to cheer for. It starts out being a weeper where we are routing for the dumped male character played by Douglas Henshall, then by the end were routing for the forgotten female character played by Lena Heady. It seems to be about how life gives us many chances to redeem ourselves despite our mistakes, with the two characters from the junkyard representing that `entity' that gives us the second chance. Definitely not a Hollywood-made romantic comedy because of the way that we are twisted from one character to the other in our loyalty and we are made to think about real life rather than just smiling about the played out fantasy-type life that never really happens(Aka - American made romantic comedies). These are the kinds of movies that made me a movie buff but they seem to be hard to find these days in our predictable Hollywood-glamorized video stores(look for this one in the comedy racks despite it's multi-faceted themes and multi-genred experience.)