Review of The Door in the Floor (2004) by Alex 4 — 19 Jul 2009

This movie is adapted from John Irving's best-selling novel A Widow for a Year. If you don't remember this author's name, you might remember the movie made from another one of his books, Cider House Rules. This movie stars Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, Jon Foster, and Elle Fanning (yes, Dakota's little sister who often plays the younger version of Dakota in films). Jeff Bridges plays Ted Cole, a cynical but wise children's book writer who is married to Kim Basinger's Marion Cole, but they've grown apart and he makes the decision they should have a trial separation to see if they can work things out. Things have been really hard on the family since their sons, Timothy and Thomas were killed in a car accident and Marion is very depressed and often goes into periods of time where she "turns to stone" and just stares off into space at the very thought of what she has lost. This results in a lack of attention towards her young daughter she had after the accident, Ruth (Elle Fanning). Ted hires on Jon Foster's Eddie O'Hare, a teen aspiring to be a writer himself just to work for him for the summer doing various odds and ends but mostly as a driver. Eddie is attracted to Marion and unexpectedly, she responds to him for her own reasons. Being through such traumatic ordeals, however, she is not to be judged for her actions. Ted is completely aware of what is going on and just wants her to be happy. The three of them get very tangled up and it gets to a point where you just know you're watching real people. You can't put your finger on them and you don't know their complete intentions with anything, it's all a gray area. As a result, you can like all of them and they are spared from judgement.

This won't be a film for everyone. Not if you don't like long films or films that are mostly about talking but it has some good comic moments as well. If you want to be taken in and told a good story, you should see this movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The use of muted color with a one or two deviations in each frame really give a feel for the atomsphere and location of the film. I really like it but it didn't blow me away out of my seat so I give it an B+.