Sliding Doors is such an interesting concept of a movie that works thanks to the lovely performances from both Gwyneth Paltrow and a John Hannah who has a lot of quirky charm. After all these years, the film still holds up so well.
Sliding Doors
— Collector’s Edition | Shout Select —
(1998)
Genre(s): Drama, Romance, Fantasy
Shout Factory | PG13 – 99 min. – $27.99 | January 21, 2020
Date Published: 01/07/2020 | Author: The Movieman
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Shout Factory provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 3.75/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: Helen (GWYNETH PALTROW) is a London publicist, effortlessly sliding between parallel storylines that show what happens if she does or doesn’t catch a morning train back to her apartment. Love. Romantic entanglements. Deceptions. Trust. Friendship. Comedy. All come into focus as the two stories shift back and forth, overlap, then surprisingly converge. Quick Hit Review: Sliding Doors is a movie I’ve seen a few times over the years, probably dating back to its release on DVD back in 1998. Seeing it again, and even though I remembered everything that happened, nevertheless didn’t take me out of the film, and really enjoyed the performances by both Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah, and the pair really shared some wonderful chemistry, and Paltrow especially had some great lines of dialogue; her speech to the rude customer especially stood out. As for the supporting roles, John Lynch was pretty skivvy and Jeanne Tripplehorn has her moments. The film was the brainchild from Peter Howitt who made his feature film debut and as I found out watching the retrospective featurette, did some behind-the-scenes filming feeling this would be his one and only feature film. However, he would go on to helm AntiTrust, Johnny English and of Attraction. Not a terribly remarkable career but does have a wide array of genres under his belt. However, his real contribution was this unique idea of telling two stories with a character on divergent paths and does some creative aspects to distinguish the two Helens. Sliding Doors, when you remove the split storytelling, isn’t anything unique as it is a story about a woman and her cheating boyfriend and bouncing back on her feet and finding love once again, yet I still really enjoyed the Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah together as a bit of an odd couple and nice seeing Hannah in a, more or less, serious role. If you haven’t checked this one out, or depressingly weren’t even born when this was released, it is definitely worth picking up as it does have high repeat viewings. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 4.5/5 |
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This release comes with a matted slip cover. The interior cover artwork is reversible. Audio Commentary — Writer-Director Peter Hewitt sits down for a new commentary track as he looks back at making the movie now 20 years later from the concept of the plot, characters and the casting. Really enjoyable especially hearing his passion for this project all these years later. The Sliding Doors Moments (1:14:39) is a very lengthy retrospective featurette that includes new interviews with Hewitt and Actors Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah amongst others, discussing their memories of the film. 2020 is early, but this is a great making-of featurette that also has Hewitt’s home video footage. Some might find it a bit much for what is essentially is a romance-drama, but as a fan of the film, I found this fascinating. A Stroll Through Sliding Doors (12:25) finds Hewitt on the streets of London, going back to the filming locations. Rounding things out, there is the Theatrical Trailer (1:56) and 4 TV Spots. |
VIDEO – 4.0/5 |
| There’s no mention of a new restoration so presumably Shout Factory received this transfer from Paramount or Miramax. The movie is presented with a 1.78 widescreen aspect ratio and given a 1080p high-definition transfer and… it looked pretty good, albeit not amazing but respectable. For the most part, the detail was decent enough and although not terribly bright, it wasn’t a dour looking picture at least. Without doing a direct comparison, I would presume this was a presumably significant upgrade. |
AUDIO – 3.25/5 |
| The included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track was rather underwhelming. From the get-go, the music was pretty soft coming out of the front and rear channels although at least dialogue did come through with decent clarity so for a movie that is mostly filled with quiet moments or dialogue, it’s not a big deal. |
OVERALL – 4.0/5 |
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Sliding Doors is such an interesting concept of a movie that works thanks to the lovely performances from both Gwyneth Paltrow and a John Hannah who has a lot of quirky charm. After all these years, the film still holds up so well. |