PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
Sliding doors. They're what Helen runs into when her life takes a bit of a strange turn. She has just been fired from her job and as she tries to catch the train home, the doors slide closed in her face. This activates a kind of fantasy parallel world: one where Helen makes the train and one where she doesn't.
That's the basic idea of Sliding Doors, the film that recently opened the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. It's a fresh story in this world of Blues Brothers 2000 movie crap that we live in. Unfortunately, the story and a glowing performance from Gwyneth Paltrow are all that keep this movie afloat.
Helen also has a dirty cheating unemployed live-in boyfriend named Gerry (John Lynch, Some Mother's Son), who sneaks in the evil fuck-bunny Lydia (Jean Tripplehorn, Waterworld) as soon as Helen leaves for work every day. How does a guy on the dole find so much ugly-bumping time? Helen thinks he's an aspiring writer and is working on his book while she toils away at her PR job.
The film opens with Helen rushing to get to work on time while lugging a bag full of vodka, which she plans to use to replace the ones she took from the office for a party at her home. There is no vodka supply where I work. Anyway, when she gets to work, she is told that they needed that vodka to woo a big client and is fired. On the way out, she bumps into James (John Hannah, Four Weddings and A Funeral), who picks up Helen's dropped earring on the elevator as the doors slide closed.
Helen runs to catch the train and is slightly delayed by a small child she bumps into on the way down the stairs. As she watches the train pull away, Helen steps back and watches it, as if her life is riding away without her. Then, in an unconventionally strange scene, her life backs up like someone is rewinding it. She skips backward up the stairs, until someone hits the play button. Only this time, the kids mother yanks her out of the way as Fantasy-Helen barrels down the stairs and jumps on the train is it's doors slide closed.
Fantasy-Helen gets home early and catches Gerry and Lydia in bed, and leaves him. She cuts and dies her mousy-brown hair and starts her own successful PR firm. And she starts to date James, too.
Reality-Helen is mugged while trying to catch a taxi and spends the day in the hospital. Because she is late, she doesn't catch Gerry. She suspects something is awry with her home life, but doesn't feel confident enough to do anything about it. She can't get a job and reluctantly takes a job as a waitress. Reality truly does bite.
Peter Howitt, who was nominated for his Art Direction in Ragtime, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Mary, Queen of Scots, ruins his unique story by spending too much time with the Gerry/Lydia story in his directorial debut. Paltrow reportedly turned down the roles of Rose in Titanic and Ms. Peel in The Avengers to make this low-budget star vehicle. Yikes stripes, time to fire the agent! Or maybe give him a promotion.
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