Sliding Doors
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Sliding Doors is a 1998 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Howitt and starring Gwyneth Paltrow while also featuring John Hannah, John Lynch, and Jeanne Tripplehorn. The film alternates between two storylines, showing two paths the central character's life could take depending on whether she catches a train. It has drawn numerous comparisons to Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1987 film Blind Chance, the outcome of which also hinges on whether the protagonist catches a train.
Plot
Helen Quilley gets fired from her public relations job. As she leaves the office building, she drops an earring in the lift, and a man picks it up for her. She rushes for her train on the London Underground but misses it as the train doors are closed; but the film then rewinds, and the scene is replayed, except that now she manages to board the train. The film continues, alternating between the two storylines in which different events ensue (but with occasional intersections of the two).
In the storyline in which she boards the train, Helen sits alongside James (the man in the lift) on the Underground, and they strike up a conversation. She gets home to catch her boyfriend, Gerry, in bed with his American ex-girlfriend, Lydia. Helen leaves him and moves in with her friend Anna, and, at Anna's suggestion, she changes her hairstyle to make a fresh start.
James continues to serendipitously pop into Helen's life, cheering her up and encouraging her to start her own public relations firm. She and James fall in love despite her reservations about beginning another relationship so soon after her ugly breakup with Gerry. Eventually, Helen discovers that she is pregnant. Believing it is James's child, she goes to see him at his office. She is stunned to learn from James's secretary that he is married. James finds her on a bridge and explains that he was married but is now separated and planning a divorce, but he and his wife maintain the appearance of a happy marriage for the sake of his sick mother. After she and James declare their love, Helen walks into the road and is hit by a van.
In the storyline in which Helen misses the train, subsequent services are delayed, so she exits the station and hails a taxi. A man tries to snatch her handbag and injures her, so she goes to the hospital. She arrives home after Lydia has left, and she remains oblivious to Gerry's infidelity. Unable to find another PR job, she takes two part-time jobs to pay the bills. Gerry continues to juggle the two women in his life. Lydia, wanting Gerry for herself, resorts to dropping clues to Helen of their affair. Helen suspects Gerry of infidelity but later discovers that she is pregnant. She receives a phone call, allegedly, for a job interview with an international PR firm. She tells Gerry the news but does not manage to tell him of her pregnancy. Lydia calls Gerry to her apartment, apparently to break up. Thinking Helen is at her interview, Gerry goes to see Lydia. While at Lydia's, Gerry answers the doorbell and sees Helen standing at the door, her interview being with Lydia, having arranged both meetings for the same time to expose their affair. Helen is stunned to see Gerry, and Lydia drops the news of her own pregnancy to both. Distraught, Helen runs off and falls down the stairs.
In both storylines, Helen is taken to the hospital and loses her baby. In the storyline where she originally boarded the train and met her new-found love, James, she dies in his arms, right after he says he will make her very happy.
Where Helen missed the train, she recovers and tells Gerry to leave for good. Then, as Helen enters the lift to leave the hospital after recovering, she drops an earring. As in their brief encounter at the beginning of the film, James picks up the earring and gives it to her, and then he begins the same cheer-up joke as when they first met in the other storyline. But this time, Helen correctly quotes the punch line, and they turn and look at each other.
Cast
- Gwyneth Paltrow as Helen Quilley
- John Hannah as James Hammerton
- John Lynch as Gerry
- Jeanne Tripplehorn as Lydia
- Zara Turner as Anna
- Douglas McFerran as Russell
- Paul Brightwell as Clive
- Nina Young as Claudia
- Virginia McKenna as Mrs. Hammerton
- Kevin McNally as Paul
- Christopher Villiers as Steve
