Themes: Infidelity, Crumbling Marriages, Death of a Child
Main Cast: Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, Jon Foster, Mimi Rogers, Elle Fanning
Release Year: 2004
Country: US
Run Time: 111 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Tod Williams served as both director and screenwriter for this drama, adapted from a portion of John Irving's novel A Widow for One Year. Ted and Marion Cole (Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger) are a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapse. After their two teenage sons died in an auto accident, Marion fell into a deep depression from which she has never fully emerged. Meanwhile, Ted has drifted into repeated infidelity, his most recent mistress being the sexually ravenous Mrs. Vaughn (Mimi Rogers), and neither Ted nor Marion are willing or able to devote their full attention to their surviving daughter, Ruth (Elle Fanning). Ted, a successful author of books for children, hires Eddie (Jon Foster), a bright 16-year-old prep-school student, to help him edit his latest manuscript. But Ted is fully aware that Eddie bears a striking resemblance to one of his late sons -- and that this would have a powerful effect on Marion. Eddie quickly develops a strong attraction to his employer's beautiful wife, and Marion, torn between grief and desire, draws him into a sexual relationship that brings the family's many emotional crises to the breaking point. The Door in the Floor also features Bijou Phillips and Louis Arcella. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Films adapted from novels have a tendency toward the Frankenstein-like messiness of stitched-together parts. The Door in the Floor is messy, but in a good way. Writer/director Tod Williams, who demonstrated a flair for this type of screwed-up family drama with his debut film, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, wisely chose to adapt only the first part of John Irving's novel A Widow for One Year. This allows him to take his time with the story, with enough space for the small but telling details that might be jettisoned in attempting to convey the entire work, which spans over three decades. The Door in the Floor essentially covers one summer in the lives of these characters, but it's an eventful summer, and the film manages to convey the novel's emotional complexity with a sharply witty script, with bright, open visuals that counterbalance the essential darkness and internality of the tale, and with fine performances. Unsurprisingly, Jeff Bridges is superb, and it's always gratifying to see him tackle a role this prickly, that works against the sense of comfort and ease he generally instills in an audience. The Door in the Floor is not about judgments of right and wrong, but about smart and tragically flawed human beings and how they deal with trauma and grief. The ending of the film is a bit too pat, suggesting a sense of closure that the novel obviously does not provide, but overall it is a fine work, and a step forward for a talented young filmmaker. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Nicholas Lundy - Art Director, Ann Goulder - Casting, Marisa Polvino - Co-producer, Eric Daman - Costume Designer, Chip Signore - First Assistant Director, Tod Williams - Director, Affonso Goncalves - Editor, Amy J. Kaufman - Executive Producer, Roger Marino - Executive Producer, Marcelo Zarvos - Composer (Music Score), Beth Amy Rosenblatt - Musical Direction/Supervision, Therese DePrez - Production Designer, Terry Stacey - Cinematographer, Ted Hope - Producer, Michael Corrente - Producer, Anne Carey - Producer, Tod A. Maitland - Sound Editor, Tod Williams - Screenwriter, Nicholas Evans - Set Decorator, John Irving - Book Author, Ray Moyer - Driver, Thomas P. Heilig - Driver, Bill McFadden - Driver, David J. Coneli - Driver, Joe Stapleton - Driver, Matt Stapleton - Driver, James "Hands" Mahr - Driver, Robert J. Rauer - Driver, Doug Salamone - Driver, Timmy Garrett - Driver, Donald Sweeney - Driver, Michael F. Foley - Driver, Rich Marino - Driver, Mike Scalice - Driver, Martin DeMartino - Driver, Joe Blessington - Driver, Stan Sztaba - Negative Cutter
The film is set in an exclusive beach community on Long Island, where children's book author and artist Ted Cole lives with his wife Marion and their young daughter Ruth, who usually is supervised by her nanny Alice. Their home is filled with photographs of the couple's teenaged sons, who were killed in an automobile accident; the tragedy left Marion deeply depressed and her marriage in shambles. The one shared experience that holds the family together is a ritualistic daily viewing of a home gallery of family photographs of the deceased sons.
Ted and Marion temporarily separate, each alternately living in the house and in a rented apartment in town. Ted hires Eddie O'Hare to work as his summer assistant and driver, since his own license was suspended for drunk driving. An aspiring writer, Eddie admires Ted, but he soon discovers the older man is a self-absorbed womanizer with an erratic work schedule that leaves the young assistant to fill his time as best he can. Eddie and Marion soon engage in a sexual relationship, which seems not to bother Ted, who is enjoying trysts of his own with local resident Evelyn Vaughn during sketching sessions at which she serves as his model. When Ruth walks into the room while Eddie and her mother are making love, Ted becomes upset with his wife and advises Eddie he may have to testify about the incident if Ted decides to fight for full custody of the child.
Marion eventually leaves Ted and their daughter, taking with her all the photographs and negatives of her dead sons, save one that is being reframed after it has broken, injuring Ruth. Ted confides in Eddie the story of the car accident in which the sons died, and Eddie understands the experience that drives Marion to despair for the first time. Ted, who is initially furious with his wife for leaving him no reminders of their sons, ultimately comes to understand her need to leave.
A.O. Scott of the New York Times called the film "surely the best movie yet made from Mr. Irving's fiction" and added, "It may even belong in the rarefied company of movies that are better than the books on which they are based . . . If you examine the story closely, you can find soft spots of implausibility and cliché. But the shakiness of some of the film's central ideas . . . matters far less than it might . . . The Door in the Floor nimbly shifts between melodrama and comedy, with a delightful and perfectly executed excursion into high farce near the end, and it seems perpetually to be discovering new possibilities for its characters . . . Mr. Foster and Ms. Basinger are both very good, but the film is dominated by Mr. Bridges' performance . . . [He] not only dominates the movie, he animates it. He is heroically life-size." [1]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film 3½ out of four stars, calling it "extraordinary in every way, from the pitch-perfect performances to the delicate handling of explosive subject matter." He added, "It's bumpy going at times. But Williams is a talent to watch and a wonder with the actors. Basinger's haunted beauty burns in the memory - this is her finest work. And Bridges, one of the best actors on the planet, blends the contradictions of Ted . . . into an indelible portrait. You can't shut the door on this spellbinder. It gets into your head." [2]
James Christopher of The Times observed, "What’s strange about the film is that it’s pitched like a play. There are no obvious ructions yet it bristles with small riddles and puzzling inconsistencies . . . The chemistry is absurd and tragic. Bridges is the obvious pull; Basinger is a one-note trauma. The story is curiously spellbinding, and fabulously ambivalent about their sins." [3]
