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ENG101 for VAUGHN
“Never Go Back”
An opinionated analysis of motion picture “Sliding Doors” staring Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah and John Lynch.

It’s expected for us human beings that when we find ourselves in any type of undesirable circumstance to immediately think back to situations where we could have altered our behavior or decision in order to receive a better outcome. This of course is a necessary measure that needs to be taken because if we don’t learn from our past mistakes how can we effectively avoid repeating the same ones in the future. But one thing we need to accept is that sometimes no matter how well or affectively we strategize our lives, there are always external forces that hand us little and sometimes not so little surprises. In the movie “Sliding Doors” we see Helen, role played by Gwyneth Paltrow, living with her boyfriend Gerry, played by John Lynch, who she financially supports because he’s a writer, struggling to author his first novel. Every morning Helen leaves her London apartment building and heads off to work at the Public Relations firm where she is 1/8 of a group of executives. Garry is supposed to be working on his novel, but is really having an affair with his American ex-Girlfriend Lydia. Lydia is a paradigm of how American women are seen from the British perspective. She’s devious, unsympathetic, and quite bitchy. The movie gets interesting when Helen is fired from her Job, and tries to catch the underground (London Subway) home. The film them diverge into two different but parallel scenarios. One where she gets on the tube, and walks in on her cheating boyfriend, we will call it scenario A, and the other scenario, which we’ll call scenario B she misses the tube and must find an alternate way home, and by the time she gets there her boyfriends ex had already exited the building. In scenario A Helen finds another boyfriend named James, played by John Hannah, who turns out be a really great person, he’s self sufficient, and seems to have high value for fidelity. Her boyfriend encourages her to start her own Public Relations and Catering service, which blooms experiences rapid growth in little time. While in Scenario B She’s stuck with her cheating boyfriend (which by now she’s a little suspicious of) and is forced to take part-time jobs in order to pay the rent. You can’t help but feel sorry for the Helen stuck in scenario B. She got a real bad deal when parallel universes were being handed out. But life always has its little surprises. After making up over a mere misunderstanding with her new boyfriend James, our Scenario A Helen attempts to cross the street to phone her best friend at a nearby booth. Just as James calls out to her to say “I love you” She is hit by a van, and rushed to the Emergency room. At the same time Scenario B Helen, in a state of panic after the fears she had of a cheating boyfriend were confirmed, tripped down a flight of stairs, fleeing from her cheating boyfriend as he desperately tried to console her. She also was rushed to the emergency room. When in the hospital it is reviled to both James and Garry that Helen due to the accidents, lost the babies that neither James nor Garry knew their Helen was carrying. Sadly Helen in scenario A flat lines just as Scenario B Helen regains consciousness with Gerry at her bedside. To make a long story short, Helen ditches Gerry for good, and walks out of the hospital room a brand new woman. It just so happens that James was also in the hospital checking on her mother’s health status and was heading for the same elevator as Helen and even though these two had never met before (at least not in the current life) it was obvious by the way that they gazed at each other that they had some type of connection beyond the natural realm. The screen goes black and you have the rest of the credits to think about all the happiness that’s in store for Helen and James.
One particular scene from the movie I found to be rich was when Gerry was enjoying the company of his ex-girlfriend Lydia in a hotel he booked for Helen and Himself secretly knowing Helen was not going to be able to make it, and Helen called to check on him, thinking he was alone, to tell him that she was pregnant. I suppose her strategy was to start of with some small talk then slowly ease her way into mentioning her pregnancy, but before she could Lydia came storming into room where he was, making a racket complaining of a stumped toe. Gerry hung up abruptly claiming that the noise was coming from the next room over without even hearing the good news. This incident fueled a heated augment between Gerry and Lydia, where she went on a verbal rampage against Gerry, pointing out that she was never going to get the cooperation for relationship that she wanted out of him. As Lydia stormed out of the Hotel room she shouted the words “never go back”, followed by, “its over…again”, waltzed out the door and slammed it shut leaving Gerry in the Hotel room all by himself. Gerry was so exited that the Scandal with Lydia had finally been terminated, or so he thought, he rushed to the Bar to meet his friend Russell and express the him the great joy and elation he was experiencing having finally broken it off with his ex, and was finally ready to start committing himself to Helen. He pointed at his friend and reiterated the words “never go back”. Isn’t that the theme of the movie? Of course! I’m sure when Helen missed the tube shuttle in the underground at that exact moment I can bet money that she thought to herself, “if only I had run a little bit faster, I would have made it”. She couldn’t have possibly known that if she had made it on the underground, that less than a few months would pass before her untimely death. I say never go back. Let the chips fall where they may, when life its little hiccups just say “excuse you” and keep on going.

>>By Bukola Laditan (Thursday, 1 May 2003 05:57)

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