THE BET – a film by Joan Carr-Wiggin (speculative recap)

Isabel (Natasha Little) and her husband Cal (Colin Salmon) find themselves at odds while having dinner in an unassuming restaurant. Cal thought Isabel had told him that Adam, a man with whom she had lived before leaving England, had proposed to her, but she assures him Adam did no such thing, and the relationship had just run its course. Cal had two proposals prior to marrying Isabel and details them in a smug and self-satisfied manner, so Isabel wagers (not intending it seriously) that she could make the next man who walks into the restaurant fall in love with her and propose.

That next guy is Albert (Douglas Hodge), and the sight of him appears to convince Isabel that she might win the bet after all. She removes her wedding ring and sits next to Albert at the bar, but her quarry is having a bad day and is suspicious of this stranger trying to chat him up. Isabel fails, and her failure becomes Cal’s favourite joke, which he tells to everyone he encounters.

None of this would have happened had it not been for the couple (Lauren and Jack, played by Alysia Topol and Serje Basi) sitting directly in Isabel’s line of sight. (Jack proposed rather dramatically to Lauren and she accepted passionately.)

Isabel runs a tea company, and the next day she meets Albert again because he’s a salesman for an office supply company and Isabel’s Tea is on his list of potential customers. Albert regrets rejecting Isabel, and, given this miraculous second chance, asks her to dinner, where Albert tells Isabel he had a job he liked until someone bought the company, gave his job to someone else, and moved him to sales, which he hates. His mother died recently, and his new boss refused to give him a full day off for the funeral, then their dinner is interrupted by a phone call.

Despite the interruption, Albert persists in his attentions, and after Cal entertains neighbours Jennifer (Linda Kash) and Max (Joseph Kell) with the tale of The Bet, an angry Isabel calls Albert again.

He sounds unwell, so she drops by to check on him. When Isabel explains that a romance between them is impossible, Albert hits himself over the head with a bottle of vodka.

At the hospital, Isabel, Albert and a Dr. Smith (Kevin Vidal) have a conversation.

DR. SMITH: [to Albert] “It looks like you have a concussion.”
ALBERT: “Why do you keep checking my head? It’s my heart that hurts.”
DR. SMITH: “You have chest pain? Okay, I did not know that. We’re gonna have to get a few more tests.”
ISABEL: “I think he means that…”
ALBERT: [interrupting] “She did it.”
DR. SMITH: “So you’re the one who hit him? In the chest, or the head?”
ISABEL: “I think he means it’s broken. His heart.”

Figuratively, Isabel hit him in both the heart and the head, but she persuades the doctor that cardiac tests are unnecessary and he discharges Albert on the condition that he be monitored every two hours during the night. This results in Albert staying at Isabel’s house, and Cal leaving in a huff and moving into Jennifer and Max’s house across the street.

Jennifer is secretly in love with Max. It appears at least that Albert thinks he’s in love with Isabel. Cal seems to be deeply in love with himself, and his best friend Max is puzzlingly self-contradictory. Max seems sensitive to Isabel’s discomfort at The Bet and Cal’s making a joke of it, while at the same time being supportive of Cal’s outrage at Isabel’s attentions to Albert.

The story seems headed in the direction of bedroom farce until Albert and Isabel reminisce about their childhoods.

ALBERT: “My mother never wanted me to travel. She was heartbroken when I came here. But she had a cat. Billy Bob. I think she saw Billy Bob as my brother. In fact I’m pretty sure he was her favourite. Poor old sweet Billy Bob was the stupidest cat you ever saw. We used to live near these ducks and, you know, I was always afraid he would attack them, so I used to pick him up every time we walked past. But I think he thought I was protecting him, rather than the other way around. And from then onward, whenever we went past the ducks, he used to leap into my arms.”

ISABEL: “My mom and dad had a cat when they first got married, and there is a picture of the two of them holding it. The cat’s name was Isabel, and it’s not like they named me after a cat. It’s just they liked the name Isabel so they used it for their baby as well, but they always used to say ‘This is us with Isabel’ so I thought it was a picture of me, but I was a cat before I grew into a little girl. And I was in the playground one day, telling all the other kids that I used to be a cat, and asking them what animal they used to be. And my mom had to break the news to me that I was never a cat. Yep. Think I’m still getting over the disappointment.”

This exchange makes one reconsider things. A cynic might suggest that Albert invented the Billy Bob story because knew Isobel’s cat story in advance. Just how he might have learned it is open to speculation.

In the opening scene, Isabel protests the impracticality of The Bet. “You do know,” she tells Cal, “that the odds are quite overwhelming that whoever comes through that door will be female, or married, or the wrong age, or gay.” Albert tells her his mother died recently, and that she lived with him, but there is nothing to confirm that story. The guy who replaces him in the sales job says that Albert was fired because he wanted the day off for a “little personal thing” and does not specify what that was.

Albert visits Dr. Smith’s office twice later in the film. On his second visit, the Doctor tells him: “Your heart is not the heart of a teenager, but if you manage to keep your stress levels down, watch your diet, and take your medications, which I understand you only started a few days ago. Then you should have many adventures ahead of you in life.” As Albert leaves, the Doctor jokingly says “I hope I never see you again.” It seems strange that Albert tells Isabel nothing about his doctor visits, or about his heart condition.

Possibly, there was another bet.

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THE BET is available on DVD and Blu-ray, and can be streamed on TUBI and ROKU.