“Who’s Helen Quilley?”, I hear you say. “That’s Gwyneth Paltrow.” Well, in fact, although I did consider making Gwynie a breakup hero (but only because I think there should be a special prize for anyone who’s dumped Ben Affleck, ever), today’s Breakup Hero is the character she plays in Sliding Doors. Helen Quilley.
At the beginning of the film, Helen’s just a normal London girl. Crap job in PR. Crap boyfriend. Spends too much time at the pub. Then, after being fired one morning she heads home and has to run to catch the tube, and as far as we’re concerned, her life splits into parallel universes. In one version, she catches the train, which also means that she gets home in time to catch her boyfriend in bed with someone else. In the other version, she misses the train, gets mugged, and doesn’t find out about the boyfriend. It’s a great film, and it’s also one of the movies that never fails to make me feel better about a relationship going wrong.
Breakup Helen is, for one thing, awesome. She leaves her cheating rat of a man and heads straight for her best friend (which, as we all know, is the only place to be). She gets a phenomenal breakup makeover. She takes the opportunity to open her own PR company. And she also meets a lovely man, who can quote Monty Python on demand.
Non-breakup Helen struggles. Her life becomes more and more wretched, as she takes on two jobs (one delivering sandwiches) to support her boyfriend (who is supposedly writing a novel). He, of course, continues having an affair.
Both lives come to a dramatic climax which I won’t spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen it (you should!), but one of the things I love about the film is the way it shows the difference between what you think is lucky and what really is lucky. Breakup Helen thinks her life has gone to hell for a while, but it’s Non-breakup Helen who’s more unhappy, and for longer. It’s a reminder that sometimes your happy ending is waiting for you, even though you can’t see it.
Or, as my friend Marce always puts it: “It’ll be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
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