Peter Howitt Sliding Doors

The film Sliding Doors by Peter Howitt guides the audience through the two parallel universes of Helen’s life. The film starts with Helen racing to make a train after just being fired. In one storyline we see Helen get stuck behind a little girl for just long enough to miss her train, and she is late getting home. In the other storyline, we see her make the train and get home on time. As the story unfolds, we see sliding doors used in many other ways as a way of foreshadowing when an important event is about to take place. In the end, sliding doors are used to bring both stories back together showing what was meant to be all along. As Helen runs to the sliding train doors, a little girl playing with a toy steps ahead of her. She runs around the girl losing a bit too much time, and reaches the doors just as they …show more content…
After being mugged, she is taken to the hospital to get stiches in her head, giving her cheating boyfriend just enough time to get rid of “the other woman”, Lydia. Since Lydia is gone he doesn’t get caught when Helen finally returns home. However, Helen notices two brandy glasses on the dresser which makes her somewhat suspicious. It is not enough to evidence to make her already horrible day worse so she puts it into the back of her mind. On the flip side of this story, the movie also explores what would have happened if the little girl had moved out of the way in time. The audience sees Helen make the sliding doors in barley enough time to push them back open and step inside. She takes a seat next to James, an extroverted man who automatically begins to talk to her, their conversation automatically ending in Helen telling him to stop talking to him due to her bad day. She returns home early enough to catch Gerry, her boyfriend, cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend. Unlike in the opposite storyline, she did not stay at the house, instead she went to her friend’s house. As the