Line #13 Film/SlidingDoors


1	[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SlidingDoors_1069.jpg]]
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3	''Sliding Doors'' is a 1998 film directed by Peter Howitt.
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5	Helen Quilley (Creator/GwynethPaltrow) just got fired. And now she missed the [[UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground Tube]], too. Some kid was in her way, [[PointOfDivergence slowing her down for a second]].
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7	But wait! [[AlternateTimeline She didn't miss the tube]]! The mother of the kid pulled the kid away, so Helen was never slowed down.
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9	[[AlternateSelf The Helen who got on the tube]] meets James, an interesting guy on the tube (Creator/JohnHannah), and when she gets home she catches her boyfriend cheating. She breaks up and gets an ImportantHaircut, turning blonde.
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11	The Helen who missed the tube gets robbed, and comes home to be comforted by a boyfriend who had more time to cover his tracks a bit. She keeps her old hairstyle and remains brunette.
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13	As time goes by, blonde Helen and brunette Helen live increasingly different lives. And yet they seem to somehow remember each other, each of them getting a sense of déjà vu when encountering something that is important in the counterpart's life.
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15	Creator/JeanneTripplehorn plays Lydia, the woman Helen's boyfriend is cheating with.
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17	----
18	!!This film provides examples of:
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20	* AlternateSelf: Blonde Helen and brunette Helen.
21	* AlternateTimeline: Two timelines - one where Helen got to the tube and one where she didn't.
22	* AsYouKnow: Gerry's pal Russell spouts some exposition, to which Gerry repeatedly replies "I know!"
23	* BitchAlert: Lydia's EstablishingCharacterMoment is ''full'' of this.
24	* BittersweetEnding: The timeline where Helen missed the train ends this way. Yes, she went through a longer time of being cheated on, had to work as a waitress after losing her job, and [[spoiler: had a miscarriage after falling not long after she found out she was being cheated on, but she survived the accident unlike the other Helen]], breaks up with Gerry and [[InSpiteOfANail meets James]] when she leaves the hospital.
25	* ConfusingMultipleNegatives:
26	** James, trying to explain that he wanted to call Helen, but didn't:
27	--->'''James:''' No, I mean, don't think that I have not called you. I haven't not called you. I mean, I don't...I don't mean I haven't not called you, because that's a double negative, so as to say that I have called you.\
28	'''Helen:''' When did you call?\
29	'''James:''' Well, I didn't. But I... I didn't not call you in the way that you might think I didn't call you. Oh, dear.
30	** At the end of the same conversation:
31	--->'''Helen:''' Is that a will pick me up or a haven't, not, didn't, might?
32	* ConvenientMiscarriage: Helen gets pregnant in both timelines (Gerry in the one where she missed the train, and James in the one where she caught the train). She loses the baby [[spoiler: in both timelines after an accident, before she gets the chance to tell them. However, this turns out to be for the best in the timeline where she missed the train, as she no longer has a reason to stay with Gerry, and eventually meets James when she leaves the hospital]].
33	* CreatorCameo: Peter Howitt is the long-haired man who orders from Helen on her first night as a waitress.
34	* CreatorsCultureCarryover: A small case but Helen and Anna reference ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'', an American game show which does air on some channels in the UK but is unlikely to be talked about casually by two British women. ** Given that writer/director Peter Howitt is himself British, this might be a {{Localization}} for the benefit of a presumably predominantly American audience instead.
35	* DeadpanSnarker: Helen has her moments. For example, in the timeline in which she catches her boyfriend cheating, there's this zinger:
36	--> "I had a most dreadful day. I got sacked. So did you, it would seem."
37	* DownerEnding: The timeline where Helen caught the train ends with her [[spoiler: getting hit by a car, losing her and James' unborn child, and dying soon after while James cries over her]].
38	* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Without the difference in haircut, it would be hard to tell the two timelines apart. (Before the haircut, the Helens are differentiated by the cut on the forehead that Helen-who-missed-the-train suffered, and the bandage she gets.)
39	* FakeOrgasm: Referenced. The film starts with one of the Helens walking in on her boyfriend Gerry with another woman, Lydia. Later, Helen redials to find out who called Gerry, getting Lydia. She introduces herself saying, "We met once. I walked in on you faking your orgasm."
40	* FlashSideways: Each Helen instinctively picks up on things important to the other Helen.
41	* {{Flatline}}: Used to show when [[spoiler: Helen dies in the timeline where she caught the train]].
42	* ForWantOfANail: A kid getting in her way for a second, making the difference between two radically different lives.
43	* ForeignRemake: The storyline recycles in a LighterAndSofter way the plot of an earlier film, ''Film/BlindChance''.
44	* GirlishPigtails: Helen, when she has to work as a sandwich delivery girl and waitress.
45	* GreenEyedMonster: Lydia is this.
46	* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Anna. Gerry nearly gets away with the extra wine glass in the laundry basket (left by Lydia) suggesting Anna left it there at one of their house parties. Anna admits it's something she'd probably do.
47	* HomeEarlySurprise: The Helen that catches the train comes home early after she's fired, and catches Gerry in bed with Lydia. (The Helen that misses the train is injured in an attempted mugging, and is delayed long enough that she doesn't catch him.)
48	* ImportantHaircut: The change in hairstyle signifies a change in lifestyle. For the viewer, it also makes it clear which timeline they're viewing at any point.
49	* InSpiteOfANail: [[spoiler: Helen met James. Helen lost her unborn child. Gerry has impregnated Lydia. Helen has found out about Gerry and Lydia and has left Gerry. Which timeline are we talking about here?]] It's worth noting that all of those things come true in very different ways and at different times, however.
50	* IronicEcho: In the first timeline when James and Helen meet he says "Cheer up, you know what the Creator/MontyPython boys say", and Helen replies "Always look on the bright side of life?" James then corrects her with "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition." When they meet again in the next timeline he says the same thing and Helen responds with the latter line this time.
51	* KickTheDog: Lydia, who not only makes up a case of food poisoning just so she can harass Helen, but also [[spoiler:pretends she's interested in hiring her, just so Helen will show up at her apartment while Gerry is there so she can reveal Gerry's unfaithfulness to her in the cruelest way possible.]]
52	* LifeWillKillYou: [[spoiler:[[AlternateSelf One of the main characters]] is just standing there, having what would have perhaps been the most important conversation in a long and happy life. Suddenly a car runs over her. DownerEnding in one timeline, but it is indicated that the trauma of her own death [[FlashSideways helps her]] to get a happy ending in the other timeline.]]
53	* LoveTranscendsSpaceTime: Two timelines, two lives, one romance. In fact, in the hospital at the end after Blonde Helen has died, Brunette Helen seems to remember some of Blonde Helen's experiences, like the boat ride on the river and the GreasySpoon diner where she met James again.
54	* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Gender reversed. James is the Manic Pixie Dream Guy for Helen as he helps her to loosen up and enjoy her life, doing kind of silly things. And encourages her to [[StartMyOwn start her own business]] when she is fired.
55	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Was there really something that caused the timeline to split, and to cause the Helen who missed the train to remember bits of the timeline where she caught the train? We may never know.
56	* MirrorMonologue:
57	** {{Lampshaded}} after Gerry almost had his "secret romance" revealed to his live-in girlfriend:
58	--->'''Gerry:''' ''[looking in the mirror]'' You have two head problems. One, that was close, very close. Put in layman's terms, she nearly caught you. Two, and this is far more worrying than the first one, you're talking to yourself in the mirror again. Really bad sign.
59	** Later brought up again by his friend:
60	--->'''Russell:''' You've been talking to yourself in the mirror again, haven't you?
61	* MissedTheBus: The plot is based on the difference it makes to this woman's life whether she gets or misses a tube train.
62	* PlotIncitingInfidelity: While the two timelines split with Helen missing the titular doors, the more important catalyst for divergence is when the Helen who caught the train walks in on her boyfriend cheating on her.
63	* RomanticRain: Helen and James on the bridge near the end.
64	* ServiceSectorStereotypes: The worse-off scenario had the heroine fired from her job to become a waitress / delivery girl for a sandwich bar, much to the delight of her boyfriend's "other woman", who revels in exploiting and insulting her, knowing that her rival can't fight back.
65	* ShoutOut: Serious Beatles fans surely took notice when Helen and Anna direct the taxi driver to take them to "Number 9, Menlove Avenue". Menlove Avenue was the street in Liverpool where John Lennon lived for most of his childhood, and he had a thing for the number nine.
66	* SplitTimelinesPlot: The TropeCodifier - the two timelines split depending on whether Helen manages to catch a specific train or not.
67	* StrangelySpecificHoroscope: Played with in the blonde Helen timeline. When Helen claims to be over Gerry, Helen's best friend Anna calls her out for lying, noting that Helen is still counting the days since the breakup, and is still reading Gerry's horoscope in the hopes that it will say that something terrible will happen to him. Later Anna pretends that the horoscope does in fact say that something terrible will happen to Gerry in a way that would make the horoscope specific to Gerry.
68	-->'''Anna:''' You're still counting how long you've been apart in days - and probably hours and minutes - but the big-flashing-red-light way of telling you're not really over someone is when you're still reading their horoscope in the hope that they're going to get wiped out in some freak napalming incident. [''Later Anna looks at the horoscope''] What is he?\
69	'''Helen:''' A wanker. ''[{{beat}}]'' Oh. Aries.\
70	'''Anna:''' Aries... Aries... well, just shows how much I know. [''pretends to read''] "With Mars your ruler in the ascendancy, you will get wiped out in a freak napalming incident and Helen says bollocks to you." This guy's very good.
71	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Helen uses this for effect when she walks in on Gerry with Lydia. The first thing she remarks on is not the fact he's in bed with another woman, but instead [[SkewedPriorities the fact that she didn't think he liked]] Music/EltonJohn.

Context Film / SlidingDoors