I remember when 'Sliding Doors' first came out, back in 1998. It was one of the movies that I desperately wanted to see but, for some unknown reason, never got round to watching. It must've been on terrestrial TV at least three times before I was finally able to catch it. I'd heard good things, knew the premise pretty well, and had even seen a few brief clips of the movie in between. In my mind, I'd formed some pretty high expectations over the years - and the only thing you can inevitably get for that is disappointment. It was almost like looking at a dot-to-dot puzzle and being intrigued by the position of the dots but then discovering, once I had joined them together, that they make up one pretty darn mundane picture.
This movie's biggest problem comes in just assuming that its 'alternate reality' story-telling device, intriguing though it may be, will do everything else for it. And true, it does help to 'shake up' what would otherwise be a brace of very dull and clichéd panoramas - we keep watching out of pure curiosity, simply to see how things end up. And once I'd discovered that, personally I ceased to care. One of the reasons why 'Sliding Doors' isn't a movie I would ever particularly want to own is because its novelty value has already gone down the drain by the second viewing. Not a great deal really happens drama-wise, and there isn't much comedy to help it along either.
I still prefer this non-linear film to the more recent '21 Grams', perhaps because, by comparison, this is refreshingly unpretentious as an experimental movie. It's perfectly contented with its simplicity, which to some extent is quite pleasant, but, unfortunately, equally as happy to be shallow, and that it never attempts to dig especially deep proves a real downer in the end. It never claims to be a film about life, with anything particularly meaningful to say - it's a film about *a* life, or at least two possible versions of it, just not a very interesting one at that. I'm pretty certain that both scenarios presented here have already been used several times over as soap opera subplots - and they really are much too thin to be described as anything other than two subplots played against each other in the hope that they will make a substantial story in union. In truth, each scenario is just a quarter - and together all they make is a half.
Gwyenth Paltrow earns points for trying, but no amount of effort can redeem the fact that Helen is as 2D as both her stories. She never emerges as a particularly strong or well-defined character, and I was never inclined to root for her in either case (to see Patlrow in a leagues more engaging role, check 'Shakespeare in Love'). The only thing I'm really left with to recommend is John Hannah. His cheery mannerisms and the charismatic feel he gives to James do help make him the sweet breath of fresh air he is clearly meant to be, and if they had to go with this whole Mr Perfect routine, I'm glad they enlisted him - he adds a warm lustre to what otherwise would be an empty and superficial film.
Meanwhile, John Lynch is simultaneously one of the movie's biggest assets *and* biggest errors. Under different circumstances, I would be praising *exactly the same performance* right up there with Hannah's. Unfortunately, that heartfelt and amiable portrayal is kinda wasted in context with everything else, and only serves as a glaring reminder of what the movie could've been - a straightforward but insightful character study with a 'twists and turns of life' backdrop. Essentially, Gerry is portrayed as a dishonest, cheating but ultimately good-natured and well-intentioned character - we the viewers are treated to glimpses of his side of the story (which, frankly, is a lot more interesting than Helen's) and actually begin to feel for him. It is his moral dilemma in both scenarios, not Helen's knowledge/lack of knowledge, that, coupled with his flawed personality, form the real interest of this movie - there are times when I even wondered if the whole Helen thing was just meant to be a smokescreen to the *real* story about Gerry (I mean, look at the lyrics of the soundtrack's key number, 'Turn Back Time' by Aqua - surely they pertain better to Gerry than to Helen).
Unfortunately, BOTH lifelines end with Gerry being rather quickly and cruelly cast aside. It's only then that it kinda dawns on you - it may have an unconventional format, but this is still very much a traditional fairytale outlook, and it was probably never the creative team's intention that we would feel pity for Gerry. It settles for viewing him as the villainous antagonist (if you ask me, Lydia is the only personage who could possibly fit that bill) and is happy to treat him as one, no matter how much sympathetic life Lynch has since injected into the character. It leaves you feeling kinda cold and unsatisfied, so much so that it effectively nullifies those last few feel-good moments. True, James is a lovely bloke, the sort that every heterosexual girl on the planet wishes she could end up with - but it was Gerry who struck me as being the most human (and NOT because he's unfaithful - but because of how he deals with the realisation that he was unfaithful). Lynch appears to have picked up on this. The writers clearly didn't, and they got their priorities way wrong.
And the moral of this movie - erm, missing your initial mode of transport isn't necessarily as bad as at first it might seem?
Go figure. Like I said, it's about a life, not life.
This movie's biggest problem comes in just assuming that its 'alternate reality' story-telling device, intriguing though it may be, will do everything else for it. And true, it does help to 'shake up' what would otherwise be a brace of very dull and clichéd panoramas - we keep watching out of pure curiosity, simply to see how things end up. And once I'd discovered that, personally I ceased to care. One of the reasons why 'Sliding Doors' isn't a movie I would ever particularly want to own is because its novelty value has already gone down the drain by the second viewing. Not a great deal really happens drama-wise, and there isn't much comedy to help it along either.
I still prefer this non-linear film to the more recent '21 Grams', perhaps because, by comparison, this is refreshingly unpretentious as an experimental movie. It's perfectly contented with its simplicity, which to some extent is quite pleasant, but, unfortunately, equally as happy to be shallow, and that it never attempts to dig especially deep proves a real downer in the end. It never claims to be a film about life, with anything particularly meaningful to say - it's a film about *a* life, or at least two possible versions of it, just not a very interesting one at that. I'm pretty certain that both scenarios presented here have already been used several times over as soap opera subplots - and they really are much too thin to be described as anything other than two subplots played against each other in the hope that they will make a substantial story in union. In truth, each scenario is just a quarter - and together all they make is a half.
Gwyenth Paltrow earns points for trying, but no amount of effort can redeem the fact that Helen is as 2D as both her stories. She never emerges as a particularly strong or well-defined character, and I was never inclined to root for her in either case (to see Patlrow in a leagues more engaging role, check 'Shakespeare in Love'). The only thing I'm really left with to recommend is John Hannah. His cheery mannerisms and the charismatic feel he gives to James do help make him the sweet breath of fresh air he is clearly meant to be, and if they had to go with this whole Mr Perfect routine, I'm glad they enlisted him - he adds a warm lustre to what otherwise would be an empty and superficial film.
Meanwhile, John Lynch is simultaneously one of the movie's biggest assets *and* biggest errors. Under different circumstances, I would be praising *exactly the same performance* right up there with Hannah's. Unfortunately, that heartfelt and amiable portrayal is kinda wasted in context with everything else, and only serves as a glaring reminder of what the movie could've been - a straightforward but insightful character study with a 'twists and turns of life' backdrop. Essentially, Gerry is portrayed as a dishonest, cheating but ultimately good-natured and well-intentioned character - we the viewers are treated to glimpses of his side of the story (which, frankly, is a lot more interesting than Helen's) and actually begin to feel for him. It is his moral dilemma in both scenarios, not Helen's knowledge/lack of knowledge, that, coupled with his flawed personality, form the real interest of this movie - there are times when I even wondered if the whole Helen thing was just meant to be a smokescreen to the *real* story about Gerry (I mean, look at the lyrics of the soundtrack's key number, 'Turn Back Time' by Aqua - surely they pertain better to Gerry than to Helen).
Unfortunately, BOTH lifelines end with Gerry being rather quickly and cruelly cast aside. It's only then that it kinda dawns on you - it may have an unconventional format, but this is still very much a traditional fairytale outlook, and it was probably never the creative team's intention that we would feel pity for Gerry. It settles for viewing him as the villainous antagonist (if you ask me, Lydia is the only personage who could possibly fit that bill) and is happy to treat him as one, no matter how much sympathetic life Lynch has since injected into the character. It leaves you feeling kinda cold and unsatisfied, so much so that it effectively nullifies those last few feel-good moments. True, James is a lovely bloke, the sort that every heterosexual girl on the planet wishes she could end up with - but it was Gerry who struck me as being the most human (and NOT because he's unfaithful - but because of how he deals with the realisation that he was unfaithful). Lynch appears to have picked up on this. The writers clearly didn't, and they got their priorities way wrong.
And the moral of this movie - erm, missing your initial mode of transport isn't necessarily as bad as at first it might seem?
Go figure. Like I said, it's about a life, not life.