What Is The Film Sliding Doors About?

Sliding Doors was released in 1998. The film is a romantic comedy drama and explores the idea of a parallel universe. The film's main character is a woman named Helen. The film begins with Helen losing her job. The film then enters a parallel plot. In one scenario, Helen manages to catch a train home just in time to find her boyfriend, Gerry, cheating on her with a woman named Lydia. In another scenario, she misses the train and continues to live with her boyfriend, oblivious to his cheating ways.

In the first scenario, Helen ends her relationship with her boyfriend immediately after discovering him cheating on her. She then enters a relationship with a man named James, who she met on the underground before she caught the train home. She changes her hair, which in some ways not only indicates that she is leading a different life to the other Helen but also helps to differentiate between the two Helens.

In the second scenario, Helen misses her train home and is later nearly mugged, causing a delay in her getting home on time to catch Gerry with Lydia. Helen continues her relationship with Gerry and as a result of losing her job, has to take on a number of small jobs to keep their house going. Helen then makes the discovery that she is pregnant whilst Gerry continues to cheat on her.

Helen also becomes pregnant by James in the first scenario, leaving her in the same situation in both scenarios, but with a very different life in each. In the second scenario, Helen cannot find the time to tell Gerry she is pregnant whereas in the first scenario, she decides to tell James but is shocked to discover that he is still married, something that she learns from his secretary. James later tells her that he will soon be divorced.

Back in the second scenario, Lydia discovers that she is also pregnant. The two scenarios later match each other when Helen is involved in a serious accident in both. In the first scenario, she dies, with James beside her. In the second, she survives and after previously discovering that Gerry has been unfaithful, tells him that she wishes to end the relationship. She also sees flashes of her parallel life and bumps into James at the hospital in a similar situation to how the other Helen met him in the first scenario when she managed to catch the train home on time. The final scenes of the film imply that Helen and James have a relationship with each other, indicating that Helen took the place of the other deceased Helen.