(rain splashing) (thunder rumbling)
- [Guy In Car] Whoa, the melons are ripe, hey, hey, hey!
(inspiring orchestral music)
- Sure, what the hell?
(bells chiming)
- Hello, and welcome to the Museum of Alternate Realities.
Allow me to show you around.
- Wait, so what is this?
- This is What If.
What if the world took slightly a different path?
Here we have some things from such worlds.
It is interesting to see what might have been, you know.
- All it has to be is more interesting than taking
the bus home to eat leftover chow mein for breakfast.
Not bad though, yeah.
Why have I never noticed this building before?
("Shift" by Rory Lavelle)
- And now what is the main attraction.
Here you can meet other versions of yourself,
if you had a different path in life.
In fact I also am a different you.
Pleased to meet you.
- Also, pleased to meet you.
- Hey, grab a chair!
- Okay, that's impossible!
- But what if it wasn't?
(chimes ringing)
- Okay, so this is--
- Weird?
- Magic realism, maybe?
- It does not matter, it simply is.
- It sure is!
How do I know you're really me?
Is there anything we all have in common?
- Relentless skepticism?
- Yeah, how do we know you're really us?
Anyway, you clearly have the family bitch face!
- Good enough, I guess!
Well, hi, I'm you if you were a fucking lifer
at a strip club, not even a good strip club.
Sorry everyone, exit through the gift shop?
- Don't apologize!
We're just you if you made different choices.
I'm not totally sure why we're all here,
but we'll figure it out.
- Yeah, don't be sorry!
So, hey, I'm you if you took a more, I guess,
conventional career path into self-employment!
It was rough for a couple years, but then I got
my business off the ground and met someone really great,
and now we have a kid together and we actually
just signed papers on a new place.
We don't make a lot, but it's rewarding as fuck,
and having a family is just, well, I know you don't think
you'll like it, but trust me, you will.
- Okay, wait, so when I'm on a dating site at three a.m.
and I see someone actually normal who wants to get
married and have kids soon, and then I start imagining
how maybe that wouldn't be so bad after all--
- I know, eh?
- And maybe I could do it and maybe I could travel more
and have pets and go camping,
but then I forget about it all the next day.
You mean I actually am capable of all that?
I'm capable of having kids, and--
- And not feeling like you're casting them into the hell
of a shitty world and its terrible future?
Of course you're capable, things change pretty quick.
- Never underestimate the limits of the human imagination.
Over and over again, I meet people who are stuck
in particular patterns of behavior simply
because they can't, you know, envision something
more for themselves.
There really needs to be some sort
of societal shift to really stress the value of focusing
on goals instead of assuming you know who you are
and what you're not capable of.
Like I tell everyone, you can't plan to meet
your best friend or your partner--
- Because the best things are often
things we can't see coming!
Nice to hear that out loud.
- Life is, you are there, and you keep making sure
you are there, and then while you are there, something new!
You never know what is coming and what can you do.
- It is cool I have it in me to be bilingual.
- Or largely bilingual, anyway.
- Hey, fuck you.
- Okay, so basically I could have been someone
actually good, but I blew it?
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Again, sorry.
- That's not what we meant at all.
We're not, I mean, this isn't an intervention.
- Oh, that is probably the first thing
they say at every intervention!
Yeah, based on your appearance,
I'm sure your life is just terrible.
You're, what, the fucking CEO of Time Warner
or the president of Zimbabwe or something?
- No, I actually am active in local government.
I'm you if you took some different courses in school,
got inspired by some specific people,
tried a few new things and found that you liked them,
and yeah, it's frankly exhausting, and dating is not easy,
but it's also great knowing that I can tangibly
make a difference, and yeah, you know, I'm doing well, but--
- Well, that's just fucking delightful, isn't it?
And you, you're me if I'd got a 1% higher mark
on a math test in grade eight and then became a trilingual
polymath on the level of Leonardo da Vinci,
won the Nobel Prize for perfect skin,
and you just bought a dacha in the country
for you and all your fucking friends, and then one time
you guys all went to a strip club as a joke
and threw rubles at some bimbo loser for a couple hours.
Ballpark?
- Specifically I am you if your parents
had to move to another country for work.
I myself work in fashion design, principally,
you fucking bitch.
- You know what?
Let's kind of reset here, and--
- No, no, no, no, that's fine!
I mean even, if I was born on another continent,
it's good to know I'd still be more successful
than I am now, with better hair and more friends
and of course way happier, because the most I get
out of life is to babysit that percentage of a guy
that doesn't deserve to be lonely, in that brief moment
before he says something demeaning, but it's good
to at least have confirmation that of all possible realities
I've managed to find the fucking Lost City of Failure!
I'm fucking sorry that you were brought here to see
you could have been this much of a fucking embarrassment.
- You only are the failure one if you keep up
with this fucking nonsense of telling us
what you think we want to hear!
You are me and I know me, and I don't have this definition
of success and happiness that is all money
and nice boyfriends and the certain specific furniture.
I'm not that much of a mewling goddamned baby.
You think all of us are from realities where we are
going around judging the shit out of everyone?
- Well I think all of us are probably united
in not defining happiness as lying awake every night
trying to forget that you could have been an adult
and you could have been a winner,
but you're fucking not because you fucking suck!
- You know what I lie awake for?
There are young people, all I think about
is these young people!
Young girls in villages and to be a model
is the only way out, but then there come these men who say,
oh, I am modeling agent, you come with me for work,
and they are new victim of human trafficking!
You would sell your soul to provide money for your family,
but here it is taken for nothing!
This keeps me awake!
And young friends, someone you work with every day
and you love them and they tell you they are very glad
they meet someone on a website, and the next day
you find out the date they were going on to meet
was actually an ambush, it was six guys from homophobic
group who beat them and rob them, and you don't even ask
about police because you know they don't give a shit!
You're different, you're not a human!
God does not allow this!
And that is their life!
And if you think I can ever not care,
you can forget about it!
All I think about is all these people and I try to help,
and a lot of this money you think I have,
I put this aside for kinds of safe spaces and efforts
and these kinds of things, but never it seems like enough!
My heart, it broke a long time ago!
But having advantages then not helping others is not moral.
You really are not human if you are just
sitting there enjoying your luck.
You are not poor, you are not different,
you are safe in God's love!
I'm sorry, it just is very hard to know
not everyone has our choices.
And not everyone can see what is in themselves.
(clock ticking) (chime ringing)
- Honestly, my secret plan is to save up enough money
to buy out the owners and then turn the club
into something better, a fuckin' feminist strip club.
I literally have diagrams and shit,
it's an actual serious plan I have,
to take all that money they think they're paying me
in return for my dignity and then upend
the whole thing from the inside.
And then even if it goes out of business a week later,
even if I just end up recreating Don Quixote,
that won't stop me from being glad that I tried.
The girls I work with deserve it.
I do a lot of outreach work for sex workers,
and I can't even tell you the changes
I'd make if I had more resources.
They deserve the whole thing other people get
where you get to be yourself and get respect.
I'm fucking sick to death of people
having to pick one or the other, you know?
- Okay, I was vague before because I didn't want you to feel
pressure to have the same job as me, but I actually run
a non-profit for really similar stuff to that.
I actually would really like to
compare notes with you right now.
- Oh wow, I literally spent last year getting mobile
outreach funding through City Council!
There's a huge trafficking problem that nobody talks about,
and it's like pulling goddamn teeth getting anyone
to give a shit, but I fucking give a shit, you know?
- Yeah, me too.
- Yes, you too.
(clock ticking)
- And nice rack, by the way!
Quite something you got there!
(all laughing)
- Yeah, I guess there's no point denying I've had work done.
- And it's sure not what I would do, but it's just as valid
a choice because it's your fuckin' body and your rules.
- Yes, and it's everyone's obligation
to rid themselves of the need to have opinions
about what transpires within the absolute sovereignty
of other people's physical space--
- Much as we do not vote in the elections
of other countries!
- Elections of other countries!
Nice to hear that out loud.
I guess it's at least good when the place you feel
most accepted is a room full of yourself.
- Indeed, I concur.
You bitches are a bit of all right.
- Fuckin' A.
- You know, I accepted a long time ago
I was living in the working-below-ability universe.
The potential was there, but everything I had
to be proud of was just the best thing
on a bad menu because I chose poorly.
Never underestimate the limits of the human imagination.
- I think everybody feels that guilt always,
for the road untaken, I know that I do.
How green elsewhere is the grass, you know.
- Yes I think we can all relate completely.
And you're like, but you guys have so much
to be proud of, but so do you!
People like you change things,
and hopefully people like me do as well.
- Yeah, you think I'm not in fucking awe
of your confidence right now?
Knowing I have it in me to be you is amazing!
- You know, we eat ourselves alive worrying
if we're on the right path in life.
I mean, I think we all feel like the shitty version
of someone else at times, but I think it's easy
to forget about the things that would always
be the same no matter who we were.
- So much is decided for us anyway,
where you are born, in what circumstances.
What we control is what kind of person are we.
- A person who tries to make life on this ridiculous planet
easier for even one other person.
- And even in my darkest moments, I know for fucking sure
that no matter who I was, I'd give a shit about others,
and I'd question myself, and I'd constantly be working
towards something better because that's what matters.
- Yes, I think that's the one true path in life, you know?
- Fuck, yeah!
- Yes, me too.
- Yes, you too.
- [Joanne] Maybe whatever this is right now,
plot device, hallucination--
- Stress-induced daydreaming?
- [Joanne] Maybe the point isn't whether
there are alternate paths out there, it's that it's--
- [Joanie] Irrelevant because there are no
circumstances where you wouldn't be you.
I think that's what we all have in common,
to answer your question.
- [Candy] You guys really think that's possible?
- [Yana] What if it was?
♪ Everything we've ever done ♪
♪ Or ever lost, or ever won ♪
♪ Was only leadin' up to this ♪
♪ Special shift in emphasis ♪
♪ I know I'm kinda sensitive ♪
♪ Forgive me if it gets a bit repetitive ♪
♪ But this is what I'm workin' with ♪