The Door in the Floor
| reviewed by Charles Markee |
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Both Jeff Bridges as Ted, and Kim Bassinger as Marion, his wife, are strong in their roles, but the actor to watch is Jon Foster who plays Eddie O'Hare, the young writer wannabe brought into the family by Ted. He brings a fresh reality to his role as the keystone hired to save or destroy the marriage.
The film is based on the novel, Widow for One Year by John Irving, the author who brought us The World According to Garp. The DVD interview of Irving divulges his attitude toward the screen writers who take his work to film. He basically turns the story over to them and backs away. Screenplays require a significantly different discipline and the novelist is freed to keep writing novels, so I think his strategy makes sense.
In this story, Ted has successfully authored a children's book called The Door in the Floor, the title being a metaphor for scary stuff that children can't see … until they open the door. But the title also represents the hole that Ted and his wife have fallen through into the psychological morass they experience dealing with the death of their two older, previous sons. A new daughter, Ruth, does not bring them out of it and they both leave their intolerable reality in different ways, although both choose sex as a distraction. I don't know how this was handled in the novel, but I found Marion's actions less believable and possibly motivated by the needs of the screenplay rather than the psychological motivations of the character. Otherwise, I was impressed by the intensity of the drama and in particular by the role of Eddie that I mentioned previously.
The fact that both Ted and Eddie were involved in writing intrigued me. There were a few words of wisdom endowed on Eddie by Ted, but they were sparse. At one point, Ted quotes Gustave Flaubert, "Le mot juste," i.e. it's the goal of writers is to use 'the right word'. Flaubert is famous for his mid 19th century novel, Madame Bovary, for which the French government almost convicted him of immorality. I wouldn't be too surprised if I read it and found some similarity between Marion's and Bovary's activities.
I believe the last scene in the film to be a metaphorical prediction of Ted's future.
Reviewed January 27, 2005
MPAA: Rated R for strong sexuality and graphic images, and language.