Sliding Doors (1998)

Directed by Peter Howitt. Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, John Lynch, John Hannah, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Zara Turner, Douglas McFerran. [PG-13]

Romantic drama only has its gimmick going for it, and the gimmick can’t save the thing. While hurrying to catch a train, recently-sacked Londoner Paltrow’s life splits into parallel realities, one where she makes it aboard the train and meets a charmless git (Hannah) before getting home early and discovering her boyfriend (Lynch) in bed with another woman, and one where she misses the train and the cheating boyfriend isn’t caught. Writer/director Peter Howitt jumps back and forth between the divergent storylines, but they’re so indistinct, it’s not always clear whether the two threads truly are separate or if (somehow) Paltrow split into two people existing in the same dimension; once you start trying to untangle that sort of thing, the brain becomes active, and it’s easier to see how uninteresting either half is, and the movie only exists because of—say it with me now—the gimmick. Although the ending flips the moral on its head—by the end, life turns out far better for the young woman who stays blind to her jerk boyfriend’s obvious deceptions than it does for the one who tries to start her life over again—the screenplay is less concerned with the ironies that could arise from comparing the different timelines than regurgitating romance movie clichés, manufactured misunderstandings most prominently. Check out Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Blind Chance instead. Sydney Pollack co-produced.

46/100