Like many a budding Bridget Jones, my bookshelves contain a smattering of self-help guidebooks…most of which I've never read.

But even if, like me, you've never read the books, now's your chance to catch the movie…and probably buy the T-shirt. Because bursting into British cinemas this week is the cinematic equivalent of a self-help manual, a Docu-drama claiming to contain thought-provoking and life-changing material like we've never seen before.

What The Bleep Do We Know!? is an American movie phenomenon. Relatively low-budget, it opened in just one cinema yet has now become one of the highest grossing documentaries in the United States and arrives over here complete with celebrity endorsements. Its content, encompassing and combining quantum physics, biochemistry, psychology and spirituality is challenging and complex but its message is simple. You can control your physical and emotional environment through conscious creation: empowerment through positive thought.

After the premiere last week at London's Apollo West End cinema, Betsy Chasse, co-writer/director/producer of the film, took the stage to answer questions from the audience. No, she hadn't had a particularly religious upbringing nor were new-age practices and accoutrements like crystals in any way appealing. "Sitting in front of a rock for three hours" was clearly not her thing. She was excited about the film's shift from fringe to mainstream and humbled and pleased but not surprised by its success. From modest beginnings - even finding a distributor in the States had been difficult, she said - the film was now playing in suburban multiplexes.

Due to meet Betsy the following day, I wasn't sure what to expect. Her enthusiasm for the project had been palpable in her responses the previous evening, but to what extent could that be attributed to its undoubted commercial success? Conversely, given the 'life-changing' claims of the movie, would I be faced with an evangelical stance?

Married with a just-about-toddling baby, Betsy Chasse and family were in Britain combining work with leisure. Her husband, I noted, while waiting for Betsy to conclude an earlier interview, was doing his bit to promote the film, sporting a What the Bleep Do We Know!? T-shirt. Baby, meanwhile, charged around as fast as her legs could carry her, babbling away a constant stream of consciousness that only she could understand. Perhaps she gets it from her mother. Betsy too seems never lost for words, although fortunately of the more coherent, grown-up kind.

A Hollywood producer of several years standing, Betsy had never felt the need to dabble in self-help theories. "I was pretty happy!" she said with a laugh. "I thought I was pretty happy, anyway, and I was. I had a great job, financially I was doing great…I mean, everything was like perceptually perfect if you looked at me from the outside. And I thought that everything was great. And then one morning, I woke up and I felt really unfulfilled with making movies in Hollywood and I walked in and I quit my job."

She wasn't sure why she'd done it, she said, and everyone thought she'd gone mad. "It wasn't that I thought, 'Oh, I want to go on a journey,'" but life certainly took a different direction. An initially successful business venture into gourmet dog treats crashed when her investor pulled out. The same week, she told me, she found out that her long-term boyfriend had been cheating on her. "That kind of stops you dead in your tracks and you go, well, you know, maybe things aren't going as good as I thought they were."

Not good at all, in fact. Betsy was also being evicted from her apartment, her car had been repossessed and she was broke. But, and talking to Betsy, I wouldn't doubt it for a second, she said that she had never been one to wallow in her own self-pity.

"I just sit back and I'm sort of pragmatic and practical and 'what do I have to do to fix this?' So, I stepped back and went 'well, OK, what do I have to do to fix this?' And I realised that this isn't like something that you can just fix. You need to do some real serious question asking if you're going to really make a shift from just fixing this situation for the moment or truly having a change in your life."

Down but not out, she knew intuitively, she said, that this was the beginning of that shift. So, she began writing lists of what she wanted from life. "I really got down to the business of figuring out, 'this is it. What am I going to do with my life? I'm over 30. It's time, you know? Gotta quit screwing around.'" And that was right about the time the script for What The Bleep Do We Know!? came into her life.

Some might call that fate or coincidence, or argue that the theory fits too neatly with the circumstances. Others might see it as proof of the concept of conscious creation that the film attempts to explore. There again, you could argue that having been successful once, Betsy had every chance of being successful again. Moreover, she already had the contacts to enable this to happen. And that's the point, really. Positive thinking, or 'conscious creation' as it's called in the film, is all very well and projecting a negative persona is unlikely to reap you rewards. But my suggestion that the circumstances of some people's lives are so dire that change is beyond their control brought a typically forthright response.

"The key there is they can't [change] because they won't…you know, people become very comfortable with their drama. People become very comfortable with knowing that their life is miserable because it's a lot easier to be in that safety zone.

"We become very cacooned and safe in our little emotional addictions. Believe me, there's a lot of emotional addictions that I have and some that I've moved away from. Before, it was so much easier to be there than to actually change."

Their aim with the movie, she said, was to expand people's horizons, opening them up to new possibilities and inspiring them to seek new knowledge. Not agreeing with the concepts in the film was fine; it was the dialogue it could generate that was important. She wasn't surprised at the film's success in America but why, I wanted to know, had the American public been ready to embrace it?

"America's such a weird place to live in right now, it really is, because it's like this total twilight zone. Because we're so polarised for one thing. There's like the red states and the blue states, right? And then there's us, we're like the purple states."

"I think there's still a lot of blues and reds [Democrats and Republicans] who are going to like this movie but I think that this movie really spoke to a segment of our population that isn't a red or a blue. And I think the world, that isn't a red or a blue, that's something else. I think there's millions of them around the world."

I had a final query. Rightly or wrongly, the United States, for me, is the land of individualism, in its problems and successes. An ideology that is played out time and again in its movies; problems are individualised, heroes come to the rescue. Were this movie (which focuses on one individual, played by Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin) and the concept of conscious creation primarily tools for individual growth or was the emphasis on the greater good?

"It starts with you, the individual. You have to shift, you have to change, you have to become passionate about your life and your reality and your thoughts. Because by doing that, you have a change within your individual self but ultimately, we're all connected, so by having that shift within yourself, you affect the quantum foam, or whatever it is out there and you're affecting consciousness.

"If you think about the fact that we're all connected, whatever you're doing to your neighbour, you're doing to yourself. And I really think that humanity really should focus on that one for a while. I mean, we're bombing all over the place, we have kids killing kids in schools…I think there's a huge disconnect there. I think people don't feel connected to anything."

Changing the world is a tall order but we have to start somewhere. And I like the thought that we're all connected, by whatever means that may be. I still have my doubts. Betsy Chasse is not the first successful person to question her values, nor will she be the last and whether her renewed success is down to conscious creation, who can really say? Grand theories of life have come and gone and there's no knowing if this is the answer. Nor can the commercial aspect of the film be overlooked. A success in its current format, an even more theoretical version of the film is already being planned. And while What The Bleep Do We Know!? and its arguments may enthuse sections of the western world, millions suffering from poverty or war might prefer a more practical solution.

Driven to be successful, Betsy Chasse does, however, seem able to balance her personal goals with a more encompassing agenda. And the making of What The Bleep Do We Know!? has given her valuable tools for life.

"What I've learned through making this film…is that I can make changes without having to go through the crisis…you know, that's the key and it's a lot nicer that way!

"We do go through things in our lives because we gain knowledge and wisdom from them. What happens to me now, is there's still times in my life when things aren't going the way I want them to go because of whatever reason but now, instead of getting caught up in them, I'm able to stand back and observe them more. OK, so what is going on here, why is this happening, what can I do? What do I need to gain from this experience so that I can move on? Most people don't do that; they get stuck there."

What The Bleep Do We Know!? opens in UK cinemas on 20^th May.

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