DVD Review: Sliding Doors

What if? It’s a big question in all of our lives. What if I’d told her? What if we’d stayed together? What if I’d got that promotion? What if I’d worked harder in school? What if I had had just one more day with her and the chance to say goodbye? If we’re not careful we can get snowed in by “what ifs”.

 We have to keep our heads down to escape drowning in never-meant-to-bes or choking on could-have-beens. The possibilities that we spotted passing by out of reach haunt us as regrets. The second chances we never even noticed are too numerous to contemplate and tease us occasionally in our dreams. Let the “what ifs” talk too loudly and their chatter overpowers the everyday routine. Let them grow too tall and even the little things are given dark significance in their shadow.

Sliding Doors is a film about the little “what ifs” bunching together in mundane ordinary life until they have enormous individual consequences. When it was released in 1998 it was greeted by a mixed critical reception but it has since gone on to gain a dedicated following. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow as fashionable young Londoner Helen, complete with believable English accent, who is fired from her job at a PR company. She heads for home via the tube. The film follows two separate paths through her life; one in which she gets the train and one where she fractionally misses it, unable to squeeze through the sliding doors of the title.

The actor Peter Howitt wrote the script and directs a very grounded take on the idea of parallel universes and an alternate reality. The concept could have been lifted straight from sci-fi but Sliding Doors watches more like a meditation on the nature of fate, albeit with an uplifting rom-com tinge. One Helen, the one that gets the train, finds her boyfriend shagging his ex in her bed, only to fall for a handsome stranger. The other is delayed again and again until she arrives home late and unaware of the affair. She therefore carries on her life as normal, working flat out to support him as he “writes a novel”.

The plot is not all that clever, despite the engaging concept of two storylines running in tandem, and the dialogue is not especially witty or sharp. The real strength of Sliding Doors lies with the overlapping lives of rounded, likeable characters, well realised with accomplished performances. Paltrow is accessible rather than whiny in the lead role. John Hannah is convincingly charming and funny because of the way he says things, rather than what he says. John Lynch is a great actor, as he proves in the upcoming Ghosted, and he doesn’t come off badly here despite playing the cheating Gerry, who is often just left to look bumbling and British on the end of a full on feminine bollocking. Jeanne Tripplehorn plays mistress Lydia as a caricature but she serves a purpose and Gerry’s mate Russell (Douglas McFerran) down the pub is hilarious as the sensible one.

None of it is sublime, even the characterisation is simply above average for the genre. The acting is very good but not career defining. That said I really liked Sliding Doors. Its commonplace tone makes it all feel like it could happen to you. There are some slightly surprising twists in the climax and I was a little moved and amused in places. Its parting message is somehow both more resonant and bearable than most romantic comedies. Some things are inevitable. And there’s always hope.

Fish Tank

Fish Tank is a gritty and real film, driven by its rough setting and well realised characters. It’s a critically acclaimed piece crafted by writer/director Andrea Arnold and centred on a knock-out debut performance from Katie Jarvis as foul mouthed fifteen year old Mia. She lives with her fierce and distant mother and her prematurely aged younger sister on a downtrodden, ragged estate. She drinks and wanders her days away, stomping with rage around the local area whilst she waits for others in an unknown system to decide her fate. She loiters near those her own age, only to end up violently and angrily confronting them most of the time. Spewing obscenities, wearing a permanent scowl and seeking vulgar distraction, Jarvis’ magnificent debut achievement is to subtly showcase Mia’s softer side.

Until the arrival of Hunger and Inglorious Basterd’s Michael Fassbender, Mia’s life consists purely of booze, slagging matches and dance. Dance appears to be her one true interest and she tentatively practices in a nearby abandoned flat, reluctant to display her slowly and shyly honed skills to others. The only other distraction from the confines of her miserable life is an almost mythical looking white horse, tethered by the dangerous boys at the local gypsy camp, with a revolving wind turbine dominating the roadside background. Mia tries, without success, to free the creature on several occasions. One time she lingers with the animal long enough to comfort it gently, patting its rising and falling frame, quietly seeking the warmth so lacking in her own life. It’s this scene that convinces you to root for Mia; she’s not really the mindless swearing teen on show most of the time. Beneath the beast conditioned by her environment lurks something better. Perhaps the essence of a childhood never lived.

So when Fassbender’s character Connor crashes onto the scene as her mum’s new man Mia understandably, after initial feisty reluctance, latches onto his fatherly encouragement. During a beautifully shot, moving trip to the countryside, she helps him catch a fish with his bare hands in the river. He compliments her dancing ability, urges her to go for a local audition. Despite his rough and readiness, his working man confidence, Connor appears to belong to a different, more caring world than Mia’s. A world where fifteen year old daughters have loving, concerned fathers. And yet a father figure is not all Mia wants. Connor excites her and their chemistry goes beyond caring. She pretends to be asleep one night so he carries her to her room. Does she want a lover or the dad she never had?

The film’s title, Fish Tank, is a symbol for Mia’s life. Watching this on DVD the picture was narrowed throughout, presumably a technique again designed to highlight the confinement of Mia’s existence. She is as helpless and ignorant as a fish in many ways, but through no fault of her own. Even her preferred route out, that of dancing, she has simply snatched at because she spends her time watching the same music videos and programmes on TV, selling a certain vision of womanhood and success. A lot of the film’s component parts appear to be cliché at first glance, but the quality of composition and relevance of the themes lifts the story above anything attempted before. Fassbender and Jarvis give mesmerising performances, sparking wonderfully off each other and being at once realistic and impossible to truly fathom. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan must be praised for making the bleak backdrop of the estate look simultaneously grim and stimulating and contrasting this with vivid countryside vistas, splendid British suburbia and striking establishers of trees sensually swaying in gusty winds.

The film builds to a dramatic and gripping climax, with Mia confronting her demons and her future. Whilst British cinema may be ridiculed now and then for being too dependent on this sort of film, if they are continually churned out they should all be as fresh and well made as Fish Tank, and the film is deserving of its Bafta for Outstanding British Film. As shoppers flock to HMV for Christmas DVD bargains, Fish Tank may be a little heavy for a festive present, but it is ultimately life affirming and should satisfy those who like their cinema edgy and critically adored. But it’s not for the faint hearted.