Sliding Doors

Double the Paltrow isn't necessarily double the fun in writer/director Peter Howitt's debut. Ms. Gwyneth is Helen, a British PR exec who hustles to the subway after getting fired, only to have the train doors slam in her face. Could this split-second annoyance change her life?

Howitt tinkers with such questions of fate by forking his tale into parallel plots. Stranded Helen #1, a mousy brunette, ends up slinging hash while boyfriend (John Lynch) shags an old flame (Jeanne Tripplehorn, in a shrilly misogynist role). Meanwhile Helen #2 -- who makes the train -- goes blonde and is courted by a leprechaun of a lothario (John Hannah).

In both incarnations, Paltrow is expressive and amiable; Hannah, meanwhile, hogs the best lines with his cutesy, almost diabetic patter. Midway through, however, the whimsical premise derails into icky, you-go-girl montages and bathetic melodrama. Worst of all, the film doesn't root for coincidence or karma; here a woman's lot largely depends on her beau and her hairdo. At the Nickelodeon, the Kendall Square, and the Chestnut Hill and in the suburbs.

-- Alicia Potter