Date: 27 May 2004 Summary: Challenging, unique script, beautifully directed and edited `The Door in the Floor' may be the best movie so far this year. It offers a moving experience and memorable characters that you will not soon forget. The story is an adaptation of the best-selling novel, "A Widow for One Year" by John Irving ("The World According to Garp", "The Cider House Rules"). I haven't read the book, but the screenplay by writer/director Tod Williams is so good that it's hard to imagine that it doesn't do justice to its source. (Apparently, the book spans many decades in the life of this family; that's certainly a different approach than what is presented in the film.) Applause to Tod again for his brilliant direction in which he obtains sensitive and truly extraordinary performances from the sterling cast. Jeff Bridges is sublime as Ted Cole, a children's book author. His character dominates the plot and it's an Academy Award level portrayal. Bridges only gets better with time, and he is at the top of his form here. In a more understated, introspective role, Kim Basinger plays Ted's wife, Marion Cole. It's another performance deserving of Academy Award notice. Basinger's beauty is only exceeded by the depth of her acting ability. Elle Fanning, younger sister of the talented ten-year-old Dakota Fanning ("I Am Sam", "The Cat in the Hat", "Man on Fire") is an amazing, natural talent as young Ruth, daughter of Ted and Marion. Jon Foster plays teenaged Eddie O'Hare in yet another superlative job of acting in this movie. Mimi Rogers supports well as Mrs. Vaughn. Her filmography notes she was born in January 1956, which makes her 48 years old. Few actresses would have the ability to play this movie role. She appears in a tense scene, fully nude, and filmed from every angle while she is revolved on a life model's turntable. Wow! More power to her! "The Door in the Floor" title comes from one of Ted's children's books. We hear the story as Ted does a reading before a local audience. It is clear from the outset that the Cole family is in a state of severe distress, which relates to earlier losses of two sons. Writer/director Tod Williams is masterful in carrying the audience through the gradual and painful exposition of what happened to the couple's children, Tommy and Timothy. Pleased be aware that all of the principals (except Ruthie) are seen in various stages of nudity in this film -- front, side, back and on top of one another. Everything is shown with great subtlety and sensitivity within the delicate context of the film. There was certainly no prurient interest in any of it. All of the nude scenes are handled in a realistic and matter-of-fact way. For example, little Ruthie sees her father naked, which some viewers may find objectionable, but which certainly works within the context of this film. This is a movie for all seasons. It's still early in the year and we can only hope that "The Door in the Floor," with its wonderful script, direction, editing, and acting, will still be remembered as we approach nominations for the best films at the end of the year. Go out of your way to see this A+ accomplishment. … Expand

Stuck in the doldrums - this dreary, dank, depressing movie waits- in vain- for a breath of fresh air to provide some headway. San Francisco Chronicle nailed it.

A pig of a movie. It snuffles about in the undergrowth as if no life existed on any higher level.

The movie has pretty people, good acting and summer resort scenery, but the themes of death, emotional paralysis, betrayal, cruelty,incest by proxy, child neglect and pompous Picasso-like sexual indulgence and sadism left me sick and searching for something to redeem any of these people.

The best movie I have seen this year. It has such a sad and moving story that really sticks with you. Bridges and Basinger can really act!

Ted Cole, a magnetic, heavy-drinking writer of popular children?s books, and his moody wife Marion haven?t had much sex since the death of their two teenage sons in a car crash several years ago. Not with each other, at any rate; Ted has managed to have lots of sex?much of it kinky--without Marion. Who are his bedmates? For the most part, women he?s wooed into posing nude for his surreal book illustrations. Nevertheless, Ted and Marion do continue to share a life of privilege and surface pleasure on a handsome beachfront estate in New York?s tony East Hampton. He writes and illustrates his books there, plays a brutal game of squash with his male friends, and occasionally bicycles into town to get drunk or to give readings from his work, followed by sexually charged discussions with comely admirers. Marion, far less gregarious, drifts through her days haunted by memories of thickly swirling snow, a car suddenly severed in half, and the still, bloodied bodies of her beautiful sons. Not helping the healing process in the least is Ted?s daily ritual of browsing through framed photos of the boys with Ruth, the four-year-old daughter who was conceived in the hope of filling the intolerable void in the couple?s life. The girl is obsessed with absorbing every physical detail and emotional shred of the stories behind the individual pictures, as if in this way she can bring the brothers who fill her dreams back to life. A dysfunctional family, to be sure. Yet Marion assumes she will continue to follow her dry, joyless path without passion and without change. Two jolts prove her wrong. First comes Ted?s announcement that part of each week he will be living in town, and the other part of each week she will be living in town, an arrangement he describes as a trial separation. The second, even more startling, surprise is the unexpected appearance of a teenage wannabe writer Ted has hired as a live-in assistant for the summer. His name is Eddie, he?s gawky but attractive, and he?s a dead ringer for the older of their two sons. And of course Eddie's brain is instantly aswim with fantasies centering on Marion, horny impulses that soon lead to genuine first love. Does the timid youth muster the courage to fess up to his feelings, and does Marion take him as a quasi-incestuous lover? If you?ve read John Irving?s "A Widow for One Year"--the first third of which has been adapted for this film--you know the answer. Even so, you are apt to be astonished by the freshness, subtlety, humor and heartbreak writer-director Tod Williams brings to a story that could so easily have slipped into soap opera or slopped over into farce. The writing is sharp, penetrating and cliché-free; the direction both disciplined and spontaneous, and bracingly unsentimental. Williams more than delivers on the promise shown in "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole," his offbeat 1998 comedy-drama about a boy coping with his stepfather?s decision to become his stepmother. And he gets more than a little help from an extraordinary ensemble. Jeff Bridges? portrait of a talented, lusty, vain, prankish, deceitful, frightened artist and writer is arguably the best work he has ever done on screen, a wondrously complex, bigger-than-life character who never begs for our affection but gets it all the same; Kim Basinger, fragile, steely and preternaturally beautiful, is superb as the tormented Marion; Jon Foster, playing the 16-year-old dreamer who comes to view his mentor as a monster, is a natural who seems never to be acting, not even in his loss-of-virginity scene; Elle Fanning (Dakota?s kid sister) is amazingly unspoiled and soulful as Ruth?a role that, if inadequately performed, could have derailed the entire movie; and Mimi Rogers is a totally shocking, totally naked revelation as Mrs. Vaughn, a hot Hamptonite model who knows precisely how to handle a knife, as Ted discovers on the thrill-packed day he tries to dump her. Talk about full-frontal attack! "The Door in the Floor" is a movie that takes a lot out of you, but it gives you a lot more back in return. And that makes it a rarity on the contemporary American film scene. … Expand

Bridges is outstanding both emotionally and with humor. The story moves along with light humor to balance the tragedy at the center of the film. Highly recommended especially to those who are sick of the summer slush we're being fed right now.

Anyone who had a hand in making this piece of crap (including Elle Fanning's parents) should be shot.

Moving and quirky. Jeff Bridges is probably the most underrated actor of his generation. Bassinger is probably my least favorite actress around, but her blank detachment worked well in this role.

Very sad movie. The story ties together well. The characters seem like real people.

A must see for anybody who has read the John Irving book. One of the best book adaptions I have ever seen.