Doors that Slide and The Space Time Continuum

A View Through The Looking Glass


The other day we received a request from one of our favorite people to screen a movie and shed some light on it. And since we here at ETC  love movies, we were happy to oblige.

(I like to say "we" instead of just "me" or "I". We feel it lends some credibility to the blog in a kind of way that I employ several other bloggers to work for me. When in reality that couldn't be further from the truth. This is fun for a while, but I run the risk of going all Golum and mumbling about "the precious" years down the road as the blog-o-sphere consumes my mind and body. But I digress).

The film we were asked to review was 1998's Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Before I get moving, please allow me a second to reflect on just how strange the name Gwyneth is. It's really a dead name, you don't see anyone naming their kids Gwyneth anymore and if I may borrow a line from Seinfeld, "who's gonna name their kid Blanche".

And while we're on it, is Gwyneth British? I may be way off-base but I just assumed she was American, yet when you look at her track work you've got her starring in movies featuring a British accent such as the aforementioned Sliding Doors and Shakespeare in Love and she married British rock star Chris Martin from Coldplay (who then proceeded to name their first born child Apple, which I have to believe is some kind of passive aggressive plot for revenge to piss off her parents for naming her Gwyneth). I think she's just American but I don't feel totally comfortable talking about this.

Back to Sliding Doors. I had never heard of this movie, and as person who prides himself on his movie acumen I was a little upset at myself for not at least being aware of the movie. The premise revolves around the idea that one person's life can go in very different directions based on the smallest of happenings; aka The Butterfly Effect. The film creatively tells the simultaneous story of two versions of Helen's (Gwyneth's) life, one if she catches the morning train, the other if she misses the train.

Now before I continue the review allow me a second to defend the male species. My biggest critique of this movie is that men are portrayed almost as badly as Nazi loving Taliban sympathizers. I guess because it's a chick flick and it's supposed to send some kind of message to women to always doubt your man, but I'm here to take a stand. NOT ALL MEN ARE DOGS. I will say that I do enjoy chick flicks, probably more than the average male and probably more than I should publicly admit, but the overlaying theme in most chick flicks is that men are dogs. I suppose this is the chick flick equivalent of having some smoking hot babe in an action movie slowly walking out of water or getting out of the shower. Water dripping off chicks is the same as males cheating on their girls; same marginalizing generalization, just two different archetypes really.

I bring this up because in Sliding Doors, the Helen that catches the train arrives home early, after getting fired from her job no less, finds her boyfriend in bed with another chick. But in the other version of the Space Time Continuum, Helen misses the train, gets mugged, goes to the hospital and returns home as the tramp who is sleeping with her boyfriend walks out the door, unknown to either that they are now eskimo sisters. This is where the movie begins to follow a "plotline A" and "plotline B" story which would be very confusing except in one of the plotlines Gwyneth cuts her hair really short (which apparently girls find cathartic, I don't get it). In "plotline A" Helen catches her boyfriend cheating, moves out and tries to move on with her life. In "plotline B" she stays with her boyfriend, but begins to get very suspicious that he is hussy-ing around.

In "plotline A", which I will call "Jolie", she meets an interesting British bloke ( I love British words) named James, who she proceeds to (rather predictably) fall in love with. Which brings me to my two biggest problems with this movie, aside from the whole "men as dogs" theme. First of all, we are supposed to be happy that Helen has found a new love interest and we are supposed to root for James because he is nice and seems to treat her well. But the problem is the James character really isn't interesting and it was not easy to root for them to get together. He was just something you probably should have in your life, like a bran muffin. But bran muffins don't have the appeal of a cinnamon buns and thustly it was hard to justify the relationship.

My other problem was the overall predictability of the movie. Aside from the creative use of dual storyline in presumably alternate realities, (for a better understanding watch this video, or read this short wiki-explanation) the movie played out pretty much the way every other chick flick plays out. The girl wants a cinnamon bun but decides that a bran muffin is probably the safer bet. Now back to "plotline B".

In "plotline B" , which I will call "Aniston" she rides out her crumbling relationship with her cheating boyfriend and things seem alright on the surface but the audience knows her boyfriend is prick so you root for Helen to discover the truth and move on. Where the movie gets interesting in when "Aniston" and "Jolie" begin to intertwine and in both scenario's Helen becomes pregnant, in each scenario with a different man. I don't want to give away plotlines in case any of our female readers would like to watch this movie, but instead I will focus on the two things that I found most interesting about the movie.

Firstly, I am a sucker for a great reference in a movie. It's been done a million times but only a great reference, used at the right time can linger (see Knocked Up). For me this is what I took away from Sliding Doors. The character of James, who in the "Jolie" plot line Helen falls in love with, uses a great expression for doing something unpredictable or unexpected. James tells Helen, "remember what the Monty Python boys say, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition". I did some research on the sketch and it's funny, very British, but very funny. It's moments in a film like this that can linger long after you've watched it. I, more than anyone I know, use references from movies or pop culture to help fill conversations. Some may say its pathetic but I show it off like a nerd's trophy and I measure people by their ability to recognize even the most obscure references. It's a sliding scale for those who can identify the easy ones like "roads? where we're going, we don't need roads" to the more obscure such as "unfortunately for Dawson and Downey I don't do anything better than I play softball".  So from now on whenever someone tells me that they didn't expect something to happen, I will coyly respond by saying "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition".

The other thing that I found interesting was the use of a very popular movie ploy that to this day, logistically boggles my mind. I am of course referring to the trick shot when one character opens a door or lifts their head from the sink to find a person standing behind them. It's very popular and in Sliding Doors this ploy is executed to perfection. "Aniston" Helen, who is still with her cheating boyfriend is talking to her bf in the kitchen. The boyfriend walks over to the window, pulls open the shades, and standing right in the window is the woman he's having an affair with.

Now allow my strange brain a moment to break this down. How long must she have been standing there to NAIL that moment (we need a name for that kind of scare. How about the "she missed her period" scare. Let's try it out). I mean logistically she had to have been standing there for at least an hour or two, and praying that the guy opens the exact window she was standing behind. Imagine how much of a letdown it would be if the boyfriend opened the other window. You then wasted your entire day on a "she missed her period" scare just to blow it. For once I would like a movie to depict the other side of the "she missed her period" scare and show the process of planning and executing said scare. I understand it would probably involve a lot of dead air and standing around, but I am sucker for the process. I will appreciate a well executed "she missed her period" scare much more when I can see just how much planning went into it.

So in conclusion I would say that in the world of chick flicks this was a tolerable movie whose enjoyment was increased by the last Spanish Inquisition quote. It's no Notebook (but really what is) yet it's not on the unbearable level of "Maid in Manhattan . It falls somewhere comfortably in the C+ range in my opinion. Rotten Tomatoes has it listed as a 63% and IMDB gives it a 6.8/10 so I may be a little generous. What made the movie watchable was the use of the space time continuum in a fresh way and for that I give it a C+. (and did you notice my attempt at a pop culture reference throughout this piece. What or who do Gwyneth, Aniston and Jolie all have in common).

Here's what you can expect in the next week :

- A Film Review of what I consider the two best movies of the year (hint, only one of them has been nominated for Best Picture)

- My new obsession with "The Voice" and other practical applications of it.

Let me know which one you would want to read first. So until next time, as always STAY CLASSY!