OWENS: Sliding Doors (1998)

I think it's time I get back to doing these. I mean, all they require is at most 2 hours out of my week, so I think I can make a commitment to get these posted more regularly.

Sliding Doors (1998)
Director: Peter Howitt
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Zara Turner, Virginia McKenna, Peter Howitt

Sliding Doors is a movie that I can remember seeing the advertisements for when it was first released in theaters. I had some mild interest in it, but being a sixth grade boy at the time, I'm sure some James Bond movie came out to distract me long enough to forget it existed. Except, I never really forgot it existed, and I always remembered there being this romantic comedy in existence which played on how different life when just one thing goes differently. So how does a movie with 14 years of mild anticipation hold up? Let's see.

Sliding Doors is a romantic dramedy which splits into two different storylines early in the movie. That is, we see our main character Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) play out two different lives after the film divides her realities into the one where she catches the subway, and the one where she doesn't. In the one where she catches the subway, she arrives home early enough to find her significant other in bed with another woman and of course terminates the relationship. In the one where she misses the subway, she arrives much late enough to miss the infidelity committed in the bedroom. 

Overall, Sliding Doors is a pretty standard romantic dramedy. There's really nothing too groundbreaking in the way that each story is presented. Its major selling point is the presentation of the alternate realities, so that's where my mind went when trying to evaluate the film's quality. As far as that goes, I think there are some interesting parallels brought up between the two Helen's which almost seems to be a nod to the existence of fate in this universe. That is, despite the fact that Helen's life starts to unfold differently from the sliding subway doors event, there are still some events that happen in both lives. Of course, the sliding doors event also results in drastically different universes. In one, Helen sets out to reinvent herself and actually grow as a person, whereas in the other she stays the same for the most part. So Sliding Doors seems to present a realm of chaos theory but with some thread of fate.

I will say that I thought the actors in Sliding Doors did a remarkable job. Despite the lackluster nature of the tired old romantic dramedy plots, I still felt engaged by many of the natural performances of its leads. They do feel like fleshed out people, and I feel that can be attributed to the actors over the script simply because there are a lot of lines of dialogue that feel artificial when you just think about them.

I can't say that I especially enjoyed Sliding Doors. All I can say is that I didn't not like it. The plots do feel a little stale even if the alternate realities gimmick was somewhat interesting. I also thought the ending was a little rushed and chaotic in tone. Fortunately, I think the Netflix 3-star rating covers my overall reaction, so that's what I'll go with.

Netflix Rating: Liked it


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