- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
90So inventive, confident, and accomplished is the production that it's a shock to learn Sliding Doors is the work of a first-time director-screenwriter.
-
88One of its most obvious strengths is that it can satisfy many different types of audiences -- those who demand something substantial from their motion pictures, and those who could care less.
-
80This is the lightest, brightest and tightest film confection to come down the date pike in quite some time.
-
In a finely realized and multi-layered first film, writer-director Peter Howitt treats us to a clever and urbane exploration of the monumental repercussions of tiny twists of fate.
-
The story is hackneyed, and the gimmick only doubles the dullardry.
-
70At least entertaining enough to keep you amused for an hour or two.
-
It may be Howitt's greatest achievement that we're able to keep the stories straight.
-
70That neither tale is especially interesting doesn't matter -- the contrast alone is enough to make Sliding Doors an irresistible romantic fantasy.
-
70Sliding Doors is frothy stuff, far more complicated in structure than in content.
-
63You're hooked enough to keep watching, even if the characterizations veer toward the two-dimensional.
-
63Ultimately, Sliding Doors becomes a victim of its own cleverness, shutting down all that early promise.
-
60Sound tricky? It is, and all a little too cutely so, the switches back and forth between realities ever more contrived and eventually tiresome, prompting giggles of relief as the storylines painfully draw towards a soap operatic convergence.
-
60Once the movie throws in a jolting, late-in-the-gameplot twist that could have been borrowed from "City of Angels," it never regains its balance.
-
60A frothy, lightweight romantic comedy that strives to seem richer and more complex than it really is.
-
Paltrow is as radiant as ever, but she keeps picking parts that focus on technical skills like accents -- she has yet to perform the real star's trick of being herself, and inviting the audience to identify.
-
60Unfortunately, once the freshness of the concept wears off, the same premise starts to feel mechanical and willful.
-
50As we switched relentlessly back and forth between A and B, I found that I wasn't looking forward to either story.
-
50No doubt this seeming effortlessness was hard-won. Movies this smooth don't happen by accident.
-
50A romantic sitcom that never transcends its gimmicky plot, but offers enough screen time to Gwyneth Paltrow to satisfy even her most rabid fans.
-
50Dithery, nattering and a bit long for such a conspicuously airy trifle.
-
40Kinda makes you think about how important seemingly minor events in life are. Not really.
-
40Unduly smug about its flashy conceit and otherwise utterly empty, the film plays like lobotomized Kieslowski, less Blind Chance than dumb luck.
-
25The gimmick behind the screenplay is clever, but the filmmakers don't rise to the challenge they've set themselves, merely spinning two unimaginative stories for the price of one.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 5 out of 5
-
Mixed: 0 out of 5
-
Negative: 0 out of 5
-
Very well made with a nice witty script and a decent pace so it doesn
-
10This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.