Thoughts on Sliding Doors

 

via Giphy/Courtesy Miramax/Paramount

"Hey, gorgeous. What do you do when you're not serving up mad cow burgers in here, eh?"
"Well, now, then, let me see. I get up at about 7:30 a.m., making and delivering sandwiches in the West End during the day, before I come here about 6 o'clock and finish at midnight. After that, if I've got any energy left, I give my boyfriend a blow job. ... Would you like some mayonnaise with that?"

Can you believe it? We've reached the halfway point of The Year in Gwyneth! Sliding Doors, La Paltrow's third of five 1998 releases, is the one remembered for its clever concept. Helen's personal and professional lives are impacted by whether she makes or misses a ride on the London Underground. Written and directed by Peter Howitt, Doors is deceptively slight for much of its run. Jack Matthews, Los Angeles Times: "Howitt ... could have taken his story into the hyperbolic reaches of fantasy and offended no one in Hollywood. Instead, he chose to tell two very human stories as they might actually develop." If I had the time, I would have researched how Howitt wrote. Did he go one story at a time, or back and forth, as it is in the movie?

I think my biggest problem with Doors was that we went back and forth between the stories of Helen A, who didn't make the train, and Helen B, who did, without much rhyme or reason. Occasionally, you'd get the Helens appearing to experience some deja vu, and both stories have roughly the same characters, but it didn't feel like either story really complemented the other. Making matters worse, Howitt's finale concluded the story of Helen B, who lost both her baby with James (John Hannah) and her own life. Helen A loses her baby with Gerry (John Lynch), as well as Gerry, who she finally breaks up with in response to his cheating on her with Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn). The final parting with Gerry happened sooner for Helen B. Helen A will most likely get to live Helen B's life, including being with James, who just keeps from being cloying.

"Everybody's born knowing all the Beatles lyrics instinctively. They're passed into the fetus subconsciously along with all the amniotic stuff. Fact, they should be called 'The Fetals.'"

Having said that, though, I'm questioning if James was the ideal partner for either of the Helens. He knows that Helen B's been cheated on but waits until after they've had sex to explain that although he's married, it's no longer intimate and is nearly dissolved. James makes a lot of wonderful promises to the dying Helen B, but how much of that was based on her situation? To be clear, though, I'm not Team Gerry, either. You have to wonder just what on earth either Helen, or Lydia for that matter, saw in him. Why would Helen A work two jobs to support herself and Gerry? Why does Lydia want to hang onto him? As Todd McCarthy wondered in Variety, why would Gerry want to be around Lydia, who's just a monstrous, irredemable shrew? Why would either Gwyneth or Jeanne accept more than their fair share of less-than-witty dialogue?

"Gerry, I'm a woman! We don't say what we want! But we reserve the right to get pissed off if we don't get it. That's what makes us so fascinating! And not a little bit scary."

I can't quite claim that Gwyneth gave two performances in Doors. It didn't matter which Helen was on screen, she still consistently came across as likable if trying too hard to be an everywoman. Now, really, does it suit the assumed future Grace Kelly to claim that if she hung around male executives much longer, she'd grow a penis? I wouldn't have minded more interaction between Helen and her friend Anna (Zara Turner), but I guess it would have called too much attention to Gwyneth's accent work. You can be rude and call it labored, or charitable and call it valiant. While she's not quite photographed as lovingly as she was in Great Expectations, La Paltrow does look beautiful throughout Doors. Yes, even when Helen A has to sport what Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly, called "sad-girl pigtails, the cruelest fate of all."

Sliding Doors has its charms. Helen B ends up making her dreams come true. Helen A has that opportunity. That's sweet to watch. I just wish it wasn't so tedious.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, do you see that bloke over there? Not only does he own a personalized matching set of crocodile-skin luggage, but his favorite TV program is Baywatch. So, you see, there's always someone sadder than you."

*Helen starts to cry*

"Do you love him?"

"No. I could never love a Baywatch fan."

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:
-- "Are you some peculiar, thus far undefined breed of dickhead. You have two head problems. One, that was close, very close. Put in layman's terms, she nearly caught you. Two, and this is far more worrying than the first one, you're talking to yourself in the mirror again. Really bad sign."

-- Box Office: Grossing $11.8 million in America on a $6 million budget, this had a limited release and came in at No. 199 for 1998.

-- Awards Watch: A BAFTA nominee for Best British Film, Sliding Doors lost to Elizabeth.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "Cleverly conceived and superly executed," Matthews wrote. "Very nearly the perfect romantic comedy, which is precisely why some people will hate it," declared Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post. O'Sullivan really liked the movie, saying the ending "should not only make you smile but think." McCarthy: "A frothy, lightweight romantic comedy that strives to seem richer and more complex than it really is." "It seems intent on capturing some of the period effervesence of '60s English romps," wrote Stephen Holden, The New York Times. Troy Patterson, Entertainment Weekly's video department: "Hackneyed, and the gimmick only doubles the dullardry."

-- Critic's Corner, Gwyneth: "(She is) engaging as the two Helens, and I have no complaints about her performance," Roger Ebert wrote. Still, he "would have prefered Hypothetical Situation C, in which Gwyneth Paltrow meets neither James nor Gerry, and stars in a smarter movie." Rita Kempley found Gwyn to be "a fair reminder of Audrey Hepburn" who "glides through the film without the slightest effort." Schwarzbaum: "Patrow's reedy, slightly petulant charms always seem to me to project better in fashion magazine stills than in motion." Patterson: "A small sadistic joy adheres to watching patricipan Paltrow's downtrodden flack treated like a doormat."

-- Critic's Corner, Everyone Else: "Perhaps because Mr. Hannah realizes that James' bon mots and Monty Python references aren't half as clever as the character thinks they are, his performance has an unpleasantly hyperkinetic edge of desperation," Holden wrote. Kempley felt Hannah was "hardly a worthy love interest. But Hugh Grant has a ruined career, so Hannah will have to do." McCarthy also compared Hannah to Hugh, writing that one can almost hear the latter delivering the former's lines. Matthews: "Howitt's missteps are all in the characters of Gerry and Lydia, and in the dreadful performances he elicited from Lynch and Tripplehorn."

-- Musical Moments: The score is still 10-7 favoring non-original songs. Three songs that didn't make the cut are "Turn Back Time" by Aqua, which was not especially memorable background music, "Thank You" by Dido, which played over the end credits, and "Another World" by Brian May, which didn't actually make it to Sliding Doors' soundtrack.

-- Hey, It's 1997-98!: This is the second consecutive 1998 movie to include a Seinfeld reference. Russell notes how Gerry's convoluted misfortune effectively passes the time between new episodes. Sliding Doors was filmed between April-May 1997, while the Evening Standard that Helen and Anna read has a cover story on "A Very English Oscar Triumph." The English Patient won big at the 69th Academy Awards, held March 24, 1997.

-- "I just thought of a great ending for your book. ... 'The End.'"

-- Next: The Big Hit. On deck: He Got Game.