Thursday 11 May 2023

Sliding Doors (1998 Peter Howitt & scr)

So... it's 25 years. I've no notes as to what I thought of it then, but clearly it didn't stick in my mind enough to warrant a rewatch (and it's not as though it hasn't been on TV a thousand times since). The gimmick - as everyone knows - is how a life might have been entirely different had not a tiny circumstance changed everything. In  parallel we see the stories of two Gwyneth Paltrows (one is really enough).

However you look at it though, and no matter which story we're in, the John Lynch character is a weak, lying, talentless, cheating shit, and his lover Jeanne Tripplehorn is a poisonous bitch without any redeeming features. And all the characters behave the same in either story line, so what's the point of the split story effect? I'm not sure, and the 'cute' dialogue between Paltrow and Hannah isn't that 'cute'.

So that leaves the best things which are the supporting players. Paltrow's best mate is written and played well by Zara Turner, and Hannah's mate Douglas McFerran is great in the way he laughs at all Lynch's (deserved) bad fortune.


With Kevin McNally, Virginia Mckenna. Photographed by Remi Adefarasin.

Q sensibly asked how the Lynch character could possibly afford to stay on in the flat on his own when he had no money, and I have to say that then bugged me for the rest of the film!

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