The early chapters are short as Ursula negotiates her way through several failed attempts to stay alive. She immediately tries her life again with a small change in circumstances and manages to survive a little longer. Ursula Todd dies moments after being born on a snowy night in 1910. Kate Atkinson explores this question in Life After Life (at last, you’re all thinking, she’s got to the point!!). Ian McEwan does this sort of thing really well what if Robbie had destroyed the letter to Cecilia in Atonement? And then there is the age-old philosophical question what if you could live your life over and over until you got it right and maybe undo your mistakes? I’m really interested in that notion of fate, I love a story where one decision, one action can affect the course of your life. And you always remember it, because it was there, and you let it go, and you think to yourself, “What if I had stopped? If I had said something?” The next moment, the person’s gone, and it’s too late to do anything about it. It’s like seeing someone for the first time… like you could be passing on the street, and you look at each other and for a few seconds… there’s this kind of a recognition… like you both know something. There is a scene where Foley and Karen meet in a hotel bar and talk about fate and what might have happened had they met under different circumstances.

The original score by David Holmes is beautiful. It was all down hill for Jennifer Lopez after this film, she has never done anything since to match it, whereas George Clooney has gone from strength to strength. It is a great film and testament to Elmore Leonard’s ability to write cinematic stories. Last night I watched the second half of Out of Sight, having not been able to stay up to watch it the other night.

Kate atkinson life after life movie