Sliding Doors

Peter Howitt got the idea on Charing Cross Road, stepping into the road toward a phone box as a car stopped an inch from him; split an everyday moment in two, he decided, and follow both halves. Because the Helen who catches the train and the Helen who misses it are cut together, the film leaves two markers, a short blonde crop and a cut on the forehead left by a mugging. The same people and the same streets run through both, so lose those and the lines blur. The closing scene hands the same Monty Python punchline back the other way. Howitt wrote and directed, and turns up as Cheeky Bloke; Sydney Pollack is among the producers. Against a 6 million dollar budget it took 67 million worldwide and was the highest grossing home produced film in Britain that year. Howitt won best screenwriter at the European Film Awards and best British director at the 1999 Empire Awards, where Gwyneth Paltrow was nominated and lost. A record producer heard the Dido song over the credits and looped it; that loop became Eminem’s Stan. A good fit if you want to track one person down two lines using a haircut and a scar. Not for anyone who wants a romantic comedy that stays out of a hospital corridor.