# Sliding Doors (1998)

### reviewed by
David Sunga

    SLIDING DOORS (1998)

    Rating: 3.0 stars (out of 4.0)
    ********************************
    Key to rating system:
    2.0 stars - Debatable
    2.5 stars - Some people may like it
    3.0 stars - I liked it
    3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie
    4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out
    *********************************

    Directed by: Peter Howitt

    Written by: Peter Howitt

Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn

Ingredients: London gal, fate, true love, running joke about Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition

    Synopsis:
    American actress Gwyneth Paltrow with dark hair, playing a Londoner?
    Believe it.

SLIDING DOORS is a love 'what if' story. The gimmick is that it's really two stories: the film follows the life of Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) down two directions. In the beginning, likeable gal 'Helen' (Gwyneth Paltrow) gets unexpectedly fired from her advertising job. So she goes into the subway train station meaning to return home early to her apartment and her sleeping live-in lover Gerry (John Lynch).

Helen doesn't know it, but she is at a fateful junction in life: 1) If she enters through the sliding door of a London subway train her life takes one path with one future 2) If she stays on the platform her life takes another path with a different future. The film shows what happens in both paths, switching back and forth between intertwined, parallel stories.

In story one, Helen meets a charming and talkative Monty Python fan named James (John Hannah) on the train. Arriving home early, she discovers that her live-in, Gerry (John Lynch), is having sex with his former lover Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn). This leads to a life where Helen moves out. Helen's winsome new friend James helps her recover from a broken heart, and encourages her to start her own business.

In story two, Helen experiences a different fate. She misses the train, never meets James, and doesn't get home early enough to discover Gerry's infidelity. In this new life, Helen takes up odd menial jobs, and faces the constant sneaking suspicion that all is not right with her relationship with Gerry.

Will the truth of the heart finally work its way through a number of problems and setbacks in BOTH scenarios?

Opinion: Rejoice all ye Monty Python fans, Gwyneth Paltrow fans, and watchers of quirky romance flicks. At last here's proof that there's still creativity in 1990s filmmaking.

SLIDING DOORS is refreshingly different from anything this year. Not only is it a well-acted, heartwarming film, but it's also easily Gwyneth Paltrow's best recent performance. When Helen (Paltrow) screams that her unfaithful boyfriend is a 'shagging wanker,' (a British phrase better left untranslated) she sounds like she knows what she's talking about!

Nor does SLIDING DOORS go overboard with formulaic true love or other stereotypes. Nobody scrambles around in danger, screaming, "I will find you no matter what, my darling!" When Helen finds herself on a boat in the starlight with James, she doesn't take the easy way out and leap into his arms, since she's supposed to be recovering from heartache. And handsome live-in boyfriend Gerry isn't the stereotypical screen hunk (either a stud or a snob). Instead he's a nervous and indecisive, almost helpless hunk. Another example: when one of the protagonists lies wounded in a hospital, SLIDING DOORS gives us neither the 'hospital miracle' nor a maudlin tragedy but surprises us with a third variation. In other words, all of the characters seem non-stereotyped, human, and local.

There are minor inconveniences. Since SLIDING DOORS switches back and forth between two possible fates, it's occasionally difficult to distinguish between the two. Distinguishing between the two stories isn't a problem in the scenes containing Paltrow, who sports two different hairstyles. But in scenes containing only Lydia and Gerry, who look the same in both stories, it's slightly confusing. Also, quite a few snappy comebacks referring to American pop culture (Seinfeld, Woody Allen, etc.) are spoken by the British characters. But these seem slightly forced, given that the remaining dialogue is predominantly British slang. Possibly an attempt by the screenwriter to balance the British so that American audiences can feel more comfortable?

SLIDING DOORS is a charming, quirky, original, happy romance with a little 'philosophy of fate' thrown in. MONTY PYTHON AND THE MEANING OF FATE, anybody?

    Reviewed April 18, 1998

Copyright © 1998 by David Sunga This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com

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