The Door in the Floor

The Door in the Floor explores the complexities of love revealing gradually secrets that betray the heartache of loss. Directed and written by Tod Williams, the film is adapted from one third of John Irving’s best-selling novel ‘A Widow for One Year’.

Starring Academy Award Winner Kim Basinger and Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges, the film is set in the coastal community of East Hampton, New York, and charts one summer in the lives of writer of childrens’ books Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) and his beautiful but distant wife Marion (Kim Basinger). Their once-great marriage has been hit for six by some sort of tragedy. The Coles have one child they dote on, bright innocent 4-year-old Ruth (Elle Fanning), but if she can cope with things, the adults can’t. Marion is looking for love and a soulmate and Ted is content to be selfish and play away when he wants. In many ways, their relationship is very similar to the central one in Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm. When young student Eddie O'Hare (Jon Foster) arrives at the house, hired by Ted to work as his summer assistant, Eddie finds himself becoming an unwitting pawn, patiently putting up with Ted’s eccentricities and being led to bed by Marion, once Eddie has revealed in one or two hilariously embarrassing scenes, the depth of his infatuation for her.

The Door in the Floor contains offbeat humour which neatly offsets the tragedy at the heart of the film. It’s also nicely played, with Jeff Bridges producing his usual strand of eccentricity to which is added a form of selfishness that seems to come with being a famous author. Particularly good though is Kim Basinger as a mother wanting more from a soulless marriage rocked by the memory of a painful incident. As a tome about love and loss, it has its merits particularly as you identify freely with the difficult predicament outsider Eddie finds himself in. I would have to say it didn’t move me in quite the way that The Ice Storm did, but the film still has decent merits including a particularly fine performance from Kim Basinger.

Matt Arnoldi