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Reader, Have you ever thought about how our lives are shaped by chance encounters, split second timing and the train we did or didn't catch? Sliding Doors is an irresistible jewel of a British rom com. An ode to London town, to second chances, to the London Tube, to twinkling ice cream coloured pink bridges across the Thames and to meeting the love of your life on a train, the tube or in a hospital lift. Anything can happen and isn't that the thrill of life, writes The Luminaries journalist Alison Jane Reid.
Sliding Doors stars Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah and John Lynch, with Lynch playing the very worst type of paramour. A sponger, an idler and secret shagger who for the sake of comedy, has no moral compass at all.
Paltrow and Hannah possess the kind of chemistry that makes a film linger on in the imagination and prompts you to ask what if, what if? What if our lives can change or be over in a heartbeat?
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Sliding Doors is up, way up, in the canon of quirky films including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Gregory's Girl, The Holiday and When Harry Met Sally, as rom com classics that never date, with authentic, well-craftd film writing, witty one liners, superb ensemble acting and scenes that have become cultural touchstones.
The film is also optimistic and funny, despite the tragedy and drama and it's a brilliant, must-see film that hasn't been ruined by bad writing, corporate interfence or too much budget. It's a great film for anyone who is a Londoner, or who aspires to be.
I never tire of revisiting this perfect jewel of a late nineties rom com directed by Liverpool actor turned director, Peter Howitt and it is our Luminary Magazine film of the week, currenty streaming on Netflix. You can also buy second hand DVDs of the film to watch whenever you like from Ebay, Oxfam and World of Books.
Remember the star of eighties soap Bread? Yes, Peter Howitt was Joey in Bread. He of the unruly, dirty blond hair and quite the eighties hearthrob. Sliding Doors was his first feature film and it was a hit that has become a classic of the genre. Howitt also has a small cameo in the film as a cheeky man who chats up Helen in the cafe where she works.
The story presents two different versions of what happens to Gwyneth Paltrow, a smart twenty something pr girl on the morning she gets fired. Two different versions of Helen's day unfold; one where she catches the tube train and one where she doesn't with very different outcomes.
Not withstanding, the effortless way the film simulataneously weaves two different versions of what happens to Paltrow's Helen, I love that Sliding Doors is a film that speaks to me as a woman. I have lived the London life, as a newspaper and magazine journalist, dashing up and down Piccadilly and the Kings Rd on the number 19 bus to discuss interviews and fashion stories and work with pr companies. I've fallen in out of love, madly, and had my heart broken to smithereens on the Mile of Style, Regent Street. I also fell for my own Scotsman at the British Library, only for it to take far too long to find out he was a genius at dates, but a disaster zone at love, marriage, happiness and everyday life. Being a champion and good at stargazing, Italian restaurants, playing rock guitar and kissing and classical mythology just isn't enough, right?
What we need is a man who is there for the ordinary, mundane events in life, such as picking up an earing or buying us a milkshake, not just for the dizzy, star-crossed highlights. That is James in Sliding Doors, apart from his tragic mistake not tell Helen he is separated from his wife and getting divorced.
Sliding Doors is one of my favorite London rom comes. More than anything it is a film about London and Londoners from the pink Albert Bridge, where Helen goes to think, the prettiest Bridge across the Thames - to Bertorelli's Italian cafe restaurant on Charlotte Street, Fat Boys Diner and the path along the Thames at Hammersmith. The latter is where Londoner's go to promenade, while away a few hours sitting outside a riverside pub and watching the oarsmen go by as they practice for the celebrated boat race.
These are my London haunts and they will always be. I like seeing them on the big screen. There is something thrilling about seeing the places you love and where your own life has unfolded on film.
Paltrow is very gamine and looks so young in Sliding Doors. It is one of her best roles, because there are no gimmicks, no Hollywood razzmatazz and no brain dead script. Have you noticed how recent and current scripts for Netflix films and dramas are obsessed with sex and so over the top and sometimes plain hysterical? This isn't entertainment, it is torture and car crash TV. Great film and drama is about authentic, believable characters and the story. Sliding Doors is a quintessentially British film, with Paltrow as an honororary Londoner, down to the joke from Monty Python. If you are not a Monty Python fan it won't make any sense.
Maybe, Paltrow should have been portrayed as an American pr girl who has moved to London. Either way, she is fantastic as Helen, apart from her clipped RP British accent which at times verges on a New York twang version of a nineteen fifties RP British accent for the BBC. Never mind, Paltrow is so good as Helen, that I can forget about the accent.
She's the poster girl for all of us who are trying to negotiate life in a big, restless city, from the joy of best friends, as in Helen's trusty wing girl, Anna, played by Zara Turner with just the right mix of steel and unconditional love - to running into the man we want to marry, paying the rent and starting our own business.
Paltrow's gorgeous nineties wardrobe also reflects her aspirations and confidence. The long, flowing maxi coat and sharp suits are all about power dressing and the intricate, blonde pixie crop became a star in its own right, with women asking for the Gwyneth.
John Hannah, Four Weddings and a Funeral is funny, raw, honest and very affecting as the handsome Scotsman with the lilting accent, who falls for Helen in both parallel storylines. In the first version, Helen prizes open the tube door, meets James, begins a connection and arrives home to find her boyfriend having sex with Lydia. In the other version, Helen misses the train, gets mugged and doesn't catch her snake of a boyfriend in bed with another woman, brilliantly played by Lynch, who wins the worst, dastardly boyfriend gold medal.
Lynch, who resembles a male whippet is happy for Helen to keep him, while she works two jobs and he gets to stay home, not write his novel and shag the scarily intense Lydia. Anyone think that Jean Tripplehorn would have been a very good stand in for Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction?
The comedy comes from Lynch's remarkable self interest and the fact that he is a morality free zone, as his friend and confident Russell declares down the pub.
Of course, I hated the ending where Helen finds real love with James Hammerton only to have it brutally cut short when she is hit by a speeding van and dies from serious internal injuries in James's arms. This is inspired by Howitt's own experience of coming close to being hit by a car after a meeting in Charing Cross. This near miss was the premise for the story at the heart of the film.
Being an eternal romantic, I prefer the second ending. I like Helen and James's meet cute in the lift at the hospital after she survives the shock of finding out her cheating, useless boyfriend had made both her and Lydia pregnant and she has lost the baby after falling down the stairs. Now, it is time for a new life with a Monty Python-loving Scotsman who gets her in both dimensions. Now that is my idea of a brilliant and hopeful new beginning, because anything can happen in a heartbeat and suddenly your life is on a different track with a man who loves Monty Python and thinks you are his dream girl.
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