In Kieslowski's 'Short Film About Love', two characters see their bus on the other side of the square. The woman turns to the boy. "If we catch it, you come back to mine. If not, not". Kieslowski shows how chance determines the pattern of our lives through the simple expedient of having his characters embrace it.
Sliding Doors, a moderately diverting rom-com, start from a similar premise. Gwynneth Paltrow either catches or misses a train; and, in parallel tracks we switch between thereafter, her life forks down two separate paths. In one, she is stuck with her terminally useless boyfriend; in the other, she meets Mr. Wonderful, and starts to look forward to "happy ever after". The idea is fresh, but slightly self-defeating: we never know "what if", in life, there are no second chances, and so Paltrow's character is hard to truly care for; like Lara Croft, she is rendered invulnerable (and hence slightly inhuman) through the curse of having too many lives. The resemblance, however, does not extend to matters anatomical: stick-thin Platrow does the least impressive impersonation of a pregnant woman ever seen.
Her English accent is also bizarre; passable in Emma, here she tries for lower-class, sounding like a well-spoken Australian with a weird affectation for glottal stops and a slightly over-liberal use of very English swear words. One would ask why they cast her, if it wasn't depressingly obvious (the presence of a second American in the cast points clearly at an English film cynically engineered to be an international hit).
But it's always lively viewing, and worth an extra point for a nicely arranged ending, which makes the most of the slightly thin material that has preceded it.
Sliding Doors, a moderately diverting rom-com, start from a similar premise. Gwynneth Paltrow either catches or misses a train; and, in parallel tracks we switch between thereafter, her life forks down two separate paths. In one, she is stuck with her terminally useless boyfriend; in the other, she meets Mr. Wonderful, and starts to look forward to "happy ever after". The idea is fresh, but slightly self-defeating: we never know "what if", in life, there are no second chances, and so Paltrow's character is hard to truly care for; like Lara Croft, she is rendered invulnerable (and hence slightly inhuman) through the curse of having too many lives. The resemblance, however, does not extend to matters anatomical: stick-thin Platrow does the least impressive impersonation of a pregnant woman ever seen.
Her English accent is also bizarre; passable in Emma, here she tries for lower-class, sounding like a well-spoken Australian with a weird affectation for glottal stops and a slightly over-liberal use of very English swear words. One would ask why they cast her, if it wasn't depressingly obvious (the presence of a second American in the cast points clearly at an English film cynically engineered to be an international hit).
But it's always lively viewing, and worth an extra point for a nicely arranged ending, which makes the most of the slightly thin material that has preceded it.