SLIDING DOORS By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Miramax Films/Paramount Pictures Director: Peter Howitt Writer: Peter Howitt Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Zara Turner, Douglas McFerran, Paul Brightwell, Nina Young, Virginia McKenna
One of the things you learn in this richly textured romance is that size may not be important, but hair is. When Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) cuts her hair to take on a new look after breaking up with her boyfriend, she loses a principal source of her charm. When she allows her abundant locks to fall straight down her back, she is drop-dead gorgeous. Couple the mane with the Queen's English accent which she successfully adopts and you have a woman who rivets the attention of the males in her audience just by showing up. In fact, given her appeal, the most unbelievable aspect of "Sliding Doors" is that not only does her boy friend stray and alienate her affection for him: when he gets the chance to make up, he botches his good fortune yet again.
The movie, a joint venture of Miramax Films and Paramount Pictures, is a rich and imaginative fable which uses the sliding doors of a tube in London's underground as a metaphor for opportunities lost and gained. Directed smartly by Peter Hate from his own screenplay and edited crisply by John Smith, "Sliding Doors" is a heartfelt romance of the "what if" genre, which considers the importance of a single split second in the life of a publicist for a high-class London firm who misses a train home by a hair. The mischance will probably leave all viewers in the audience thinking about how their own lives would have been very different if they had not happened upon a single occurrence which altered their destinies. Though the doors close on her just before she can enter, she retraces her steps in her own imagination, backtracking up the stairs and then dashing a bit more quickly this time. She wriggles through and arrives just in time to catch her lover, Gerry (John Lynch) in a position with Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn) which is so compromising that Gerry does not even try to say, "It's not the way it looks."
A conventional picture could easily extract a couple of hours of adventure from this flight of fancy, framing the action by having the dreamer wake up just as things reach a high point. Howitt, however, has something else in mind. Splitting Helen into two people, one being the realistic person who misses the train and goes about her life as it really unfolds, the other the fanciful Helen who immerses herself in a far more strained enterprise. Now you see the long-haired Helen returning to her boy friend only vaguely speculating that something's amiss (she spots two brandy glasses in a pile of laundry); now you see the short-haired, fanciful Helen who catches Gerry in flagrante delicto.
Obviously the woman of the vision has the more interesting adventure. Having walked out on Gerry, she runs through an affair of the heart with a witty man, James (John Hannah), whom she has met on the tube. Finding herself on the rebound, she keeps the new relationship on the slow track while staying at the home of her best friend, Anna (Zana Turner), who advises her and enjoys a vicarious thrill from listening to her accounts, a narrative that gathers momentum when Gerry returns to compete with James for Helen's affection.
"Sliding Doors" is what some would call a date movie, a frothy confection whose two Helens avoid confusing the audience since we know that the short-haired romantic is the one who has been dumped and who is now leading a far more interesting life both professionally and romantically. The dialogue is smooth, reminding one of the give and take of Edward Burns's "The Brothers McMullen," and featuring a surprisingly acerbic role by Jeanne Tripplehorn as Lydia, Gerry's other girl friend, a manipulative and mean woman who will stop at little short of murder to divert her man's attentions from the far more desirable Helen. The movie displays a Gwyneth Paltrow who still conveys the culture of a highly educated and classy woman but who can safely play contemporary characters as well as she can interpret Jeffersonian contemporaries. Though the concluding scenes-- which draw the two halves of Helen together--seem contrived, the story as a whole is resourceful, amusing, and a delight to watch. Rated R. Running Time: 108 minutes. (C) 1998 Harvey Karten
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