- StudioBriefing, 24 April 1998


Bringing yet another romantic comedy to the spring screens
with Sliding Doors (1998), writer-director Peter Howitt is
faring somewhat better at the hands of critics than his
rivals. "Howitt's detailed, snappy writing and light tone
keep things mostly smart and breezy," writes Glenn Whipp
in the Los Angeles Daily News. "It's mostly fluff, but it
can be engaging fluff and, on occasion, clever fluff,"
comments Eleanor Ringel in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Similarly, Rita Kempley in the Washington Post calls Sliding
Doors "frothy stuff." Jay Carr in the Boston Globe says that
Howitt "is often clever and sprightly enough to dance around
the thinness of his writing. ... It's a passably bright date
movie." Several critics apply the words "charming" and
"engaging" to the film, which stars Gwyneth Paltrow as a
character, who, in one life catches a London subway train
and, in another, misses it. Jack Mathews, writing for
Newsday and the Los Angeles Times calls the film "cleverly
conceived and superbly executed."