A promising subject from which to craft absorbing narrative design: an awareness of the existence of spatial dimensions parallel to our own, made more compelling by a widespread latter-day theory among physicists that the concept of time itself is a spurious construct, is treated here as merely an element for the production of a silly science fantasy story, having a weak merger of talent that condemns the film to failure from its onset. Any possible form of dramatic intent wants drive in this simple-minded tale based upon inferior material, an account telling of Joanna Burke (Sherilyn Fenn) who has ostensibly moved over into "the other side" after being mowed down by a semi-trailer truck as she is saving the life of her young daughter who is about to be flattened by the same vehicle. After awakening in a hospital, Joanna is informed that she is actually Sarah Randolph, whereas Joanna Burke and her daughter do not, in fact, exist, and it falls upon bewildered Joanna to solve this puzzle of her identity, a task for which she might not have competence, and exacerbated by Sarah's being of an unpleasant sort, perhaps to the point of having strangled her eight year old son to death. A romantic thread is unsurprisingly engendered when the physician treating Joanna/Sarah, played by Thomas Gibson, is determined to become involved with her predicament, and the two struggle along together, when not embracing or seeking to avoid close attention being paid to murder suspect Sarah by a zealous police detective who seemingly has only the Randolph homicide case assigned to him. Overly discursive plot development effaces any chance of suspense being constructed, particularly as to whether or not Joanna will be able to regain her former self along with her daughter, thereby creating only weak entertainment from a film that is further stricken by a glut of risible flaws in logic and continuity, not solely within the screenplay, but additionally relating to rather queer medical and law enforcement policies and procedures.
