 Sliding Doors (1998) Soon, Helen's two lives have taken off on two distinctly different paths. The now-enlightened Helen cuts her hair and dyes it blonde, making it easier to distinguish her from her the unenlightened Helen who keeps her long mousy brown hair. Blonde Helen meets adorable, funny James (John Hannah), who always has a perfectly funny thing to say, regardless of how serious the situation or how difficult it is to come up with perfectly funny things to say. Blonde Helen smiles a lot and enjoys life, while Brown Helen is sad about losing her job and begins to suspect that her writer boyfriend, who never seems to write anything, is having an affair. Both Helens turn up at the same places at the same time, but under different circumstances. It's directed well enough so that there is never confusion as to whose story we're following, and the coincidences work in the favor of the film's lighthearted take on romance and fate. Much like the two Helens, Sliding Doors suffers from being two movies, one a metaphysical romantic comedy, the other a metaphysical drama. The result of this confusion is that you just don't care. Paltrow, exquisite and engaging, easily slips from one to the other, but she happens to be an excellent actress. John Hannah, her goofy suitor, is always goofy, never allowing a moment of seriousness until he absolutely positively has to (more the fault of the writing than his acting). John Lynch, as Gerry, is awful. He plays it way too screwball, way too neurotic, and just gets on our collective nerves. Jeanne Tripplehorn proves once again that she is a terrible, terrible actress, and any idiot who would leave Gwyneth for her deserves to endure clips of her so-called "performances" in Waterworld and Basic Instinct for all eternity. The message of the movie is that we can't really escape ourselves or our eventual fates, even if certain events send us on tangents. It's an interesting idea, but it's played out in a kind of mean-spirited fashion, as if the gods simply won't allow us to have more than one lifetime. I completely disagree with this conclusion. I myself have several lifetimes working in tandem, including one as an (insert joke here). If you're going to have a movie with a metaphysical message, go all the way. Phenomenon did the same thing as Sliding Doors when it gave John Travolta all those amazing powers and then took them away with a brain tumor. These bastard filmmakers maintain the status quo, believing in the impossible but still thinking it's impossible, trusting the audience just enough to raise the topic but not trusting us enough to carry it through. Why is Helen's train event so much more important than any other thing that happens to her? If I ever do a parallel lives movie, it will be really cool. And I won't stop at just two parallel lives. I'd have my character split into new lives every time he makes a choice. Blue socks or white? Oatmeal or Raisin Bran? Left turn at Cherry or Walters? With each new life I'd split the screen so you could watch every possibility for the next hour and a half. Eventually the screen would split into so many lives it would be like looking at nothing, and the audience would leave in frustration, my film career would end and I'd become an (insert joke here). To illustrate the possibilities of alternate lives, I will now continue this review in a parallel universe and end it in this one.
Review by Crimedog |