“Constellations” Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ruth Wilson

Short and sweet and strangely haunting. That’s the quick take on Constellations, a romantic two-hander starring dreamy Jake Gyllenhaal and the radiant British thesp Ruth Wilson (fresh off her Golden Globes win for Showtime’s The Affair) as a young couple who break through the boundaries of the time/space continuum to explore the infinite possibilities of their love. Although barely an hour long, this baby bombshell by hot Brit scribe Nick Payne (a play that originated at the Royal Court and went on to the West End) overflows with emotional highs and lows. Who hasn’t wondered about the roads not taken and where they might have led us? Who hasn’t mourned the adventures we never had, the soulmates we never met, the happiness we never knew because we never dared to take that detour off the beaten track? The poet Robert Frost said it in a single memorable line: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / And sorry I could not travel both.” Gwyneth Paltrow had the rare opportunity to live two simultaneous (and equally dull) lives in the 1998 movie Sliding Doors. In its own clumsy way, the musical If/Then plays on the same theme by manipulating the chance decisions that allow a woman, played by Idina Menzel, to pursue two alternate lives. Constellations accomplishes the same metaphysical feat with far more grace and intelligence by sending destined lovers Roland (Gyllenhaal) and Marianne (Wilson) spinning through space, altering their relationship at every turn through the individual choices they make.