SLIDING DOORS (Miramax) Directed by Peter Howitt Everyone at one time or another has wondered after making a choice, "What if I'd done it differently?", and that's the central conceit of "Sliding Doors," a kind of comic-romantic "Twilight Zone" episode, in which a young Englishwoman named Helen gets the opportunity to live out two destinies simultaneously. Her fortunes turn on whether or not she boards a London subway train, the kind with sliding doors that close quickly and firmly. One Helen makes it onboard and gets home in time to catch her novelist lover Gerry (John Lynch) rumpling the sheets with his shrewish American paramour (Jeanne Tripplehorn); the other Helen doesn't make it into the car and never learns about Gerry's afternoon delights. In each existence there's romance, despair, a career change and a new look for Helen: Unsurprisingly, the blonde Helen ends up having considerably more fun than her brunette counterpart. Helen is played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who's currently competing against herself at the box-office with "Great Expectations" and "Hush." Out of the three films, "Sliding Doors" is easily the one that showcases Paltrow to best advantage. There's no showiness in her utilization of an English accent (unlike her former beau Brad Pitt's "hey, look, I'm acting!" turns as an Irishman in "The Devil's Own" and an Austrian in "Seven Years in Tibet" last year) and, better yet, Paltrow actually sounds like she knows what "wanker" and "bollocks" mean. But the real revelation in her performance is the charisma that radiates from both her Helens: You may pick up hints of Audrey Hepburn and of Paltrow's real-life mother Blythe Danner, a gifted actress who never quite achieved prominence in films. Too often in her past movies Paltrow has been cast as either an ice princess, a gloomy grump or a kook, and it's a relief to watch her get a crack at playing someone down-to-earth. Writer-director Peter Howitt has contrived a vehicle for his star that's often more intriguing than it is truly funny: Despite some clever lines, "Sliding Doors" never truly hits its comic stride. That's not to say that the movie doesn't have many assets to offer, including a typically charming turn by John Hannah ("Four Weddings and a Funeral") as a potential new boyfriend for Helen, a delightful soundtrack of British hits from such bands as Olive and Peach Union, and a satisfyingly twisted wrap-up. Howitt has also managed to track Helen's parallel lives with a minimum of confusion, making it a pleasure to "mind the gap" (as they say in the London tubes) between the two diverging stories.
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