The lives of the two Gwyneths are intermixed for the remainder of the film. We can tell them apart because, at first, Gwyneth #1 sports a band-aid from an encounter with an incompetent purse snatcher, and later, Gwyneth #2 gets a new hairdo.
It's not an improvement (somehow, it makes her look too thin), but the same can't be said for her life. Gwyneth #1 has to stay with John Lynch, who is sponging off of her while having a scandalous affair with a very determined Jeanne Tripplehorn. Gwyneth #2 instead dumps the two-timer and hooks up with nice, funny, empathetic, and presumably wealthy John Hannah. She also starts a successful public relations business while poor Gwyneth #1 has to wait tables and deliver sandwiches. However, Gwyneth #1 does have it better once her tumble down the stairs proves less devastating than Gwyneth #2's bad habit of standing in the middle of the road. Which only proves that your mother was right after all.
How others will see it. Sliding Doors marked the screenwriting and directing debut of veteran actor Peter Howitt. (Look for Howitt's cameo as "the life of the party" who asks Gwyneth #1 out on a date. Her reply nearly pushes the film into "R" territory). Howitt got quite a cast for a first movie, which implies that both his film and his story were well received prior to its production. And the cast helped ensure he would win awards, Best Screenwriter from the European Film Awards and Best British Director from the Empire Awards. However, the Sundance Film Festival, where it was introduced, ignored the movie, and its box office success was limited.
The film's target audience is young adult women. Not surprisingly, there is a gender gap in perceptions of the movie. Imdb.com has a large user rating spread between the genders, 7.3 for women and 6.6 for men. Men do have both Gwyneths to admire, not to mention scheming sexpot Jeanne Tripplehorn, but they obviously feel differently about the two male leads. They may suspect John Hannah is gay, and also wonder about the sanity of anxious John Lynch. Why cheat on gorgeous provider Gwyneth when Tripplehorn is older and more demanding? Let's face it, she's practically evil.
How I felt about it. Yes, I too felt sorry for John Lynch. The poor schmuck is juggling two women, both of whom are smarter than he is. He has the impossible task of keeping both lovers while preventing Gwyneth from finding out about Tripplehorn, even though the latter wants to provoke a confrontation between Lynch and Gwyneth. As a comic actor, Lynch has mastered the 'deer caught in headlights' look. Tripplehorn is ideal for the 'other woman from hell' role. Gwyneth is perfect for her #1 alternate life, although her #2 existence seems more like a romantic fantasy, which requires more sarcasm and less sunshine to counteract. The real problem, then, must be with John Hannah, whose obsession with decades-old Monty Python skits should have ended with adolescence.