Reviewed by Alicia Glass
Desperate widower Eduardo finds himself prowling different realities, in search of the perfect life with his still-alive wife and children.
Okay so, everything about Eduardo’s (Pablo Derqui) life is ordinary – he and his beloved wife Elisa (Andrea Ros) might argue more than a little bit, his two children have their idiosyncrasies but he loves them all the same, and of course, relatives and in-laws with their own many issues that they just insist on sharing abound too. Eduardo seems to exist in a kind of perpetual state of beige-grey, carrying on as your average human male does, but then one day after a particularly selfish row with the wife, Eduardo loses his entire immediate family to a devastating car accident.
Wracked with guilt, which is very much a recurring theme of the show, Eduardo hauls himself to his favorite bridge with its accompanying rushing train, determined to breathlessly end it all, only to be stopped by the mysterious white-haired woman from the beginning of the show. Dr. Everest (Mercedes Sampietro), as she turns out to call herself, claims to be all sorts of quantum physicist and NASA-related things, but now after a summary dismissal seeks a guinea pig unafraid of death for her magnum opus – portals to other universes. And Eduardo, miserable and mystified at the idea that he can find his Elisa and his children alive in some other universe, willingly takes on the silver infinity bracelet (my name for it, not theirs) and does the ‘Quantum Leap’ thing to a different universe!
Eduardo as a young man in university with that ridiculous mop of hair is something to contend with, but the scenes where he and Elisa met and performed together are kind and lovely. Eduardo slowly learns, as he wanders through the choices he made for his wife in the life they had had originally, versus what she might have wanted, or even been able to achieve without him, that his own selfishness when pawing through these different universes looking for perfection was his ownversion, not Elisa’s.
No matter which version of Elisa Eduardo is currently babbling his search at – famous singer, flustered student, even cute little girl – her connection to Eduardo in every universe is instant and palpable. One even sees a much younger version of Elisa have some lovely sexy times with our main Eduardo, who while still being Eduardo, is much older and should know better. Every time they reconnect, Eduardo and Elisa can’t help but be drawn to each-other, twinned universes together, seemingly fated to always be parted, far too often by car accidents.
As Eduardo continues to search the multiverse for the “perfect life” with his wife and their children still alive, his list of requirements keeps getting shorter and his understanding of his own selfishness blossoms. Between each jump Dr. Everest patiently waits at the silver room for the after-interview about what Eduardo saw and did – til the day comes when Dr. Everests’ age and health catches up with her and she suddenly isn’t there to help guide Eduardo anymore. For the good Doctor, a scientific genius using all her forbidden creativity to help the heartbroken soul of Eduardo, is hardly altruistic and still has plenty of secrets of her own.
A European Spanish TV show and therefore subtitled in English, If I Hadn’t Met You offers the most milquetoast of men a chance to Quantum Leap his own life and discover the beautifully unknowable consequences of the loved ones in his own life!