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A waste of 90 minutes of my life

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Successful children's author Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) lives with his wife Marion (Kim Basinger) and his young daughter Ruth (Elle Fanning) and reside in the East Hamptons. Ted takes in young intern, Eddie (Jon Foster) to do menial jobs. The Cole clan is not on happy terms after the tragic death of their two adolescent sons. This is where Eddie faces up to a more complex initiative. It appears as though Ted and Marion have visions of one of their sons placed in Eddie's soul but they take the approach in more contrasting way.This is a very engaging drama about trying to cope with grief and what kind of steps must be taken in order to move forward. "The Door in the Floor", is very much about character understanding not only towards the audience but towards each other. Writer/director Tod Williams approaches this very sensitive story and handles it with the greatest of care. The movie is truly saturated with loads of emotion and the performances by veterans like Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger.The once loving relationship between Ted and Marion became lost after the tragic death of their sons. The worse part is that they each know one another's vulnerabilities and take their grief in very contrasting perspectives. Ted has grown to becoming an alcoholic and has been a philanderer towards the ladies. Marion's just can't believe that her boys were taken away too soon and has lost all emotions. It wasn't until a young man comes into the fray and their lives have taken a sudden impact.Even though book-to-movie adaptations have been frowned upon by the many audience members mostly because they tend to leave out a lot of details and at times very important ones, Williams focuses on the first third of John Irving's novel "A Widow for One Year". The movie script was provocative and the characters are what we might have expected them from the novel to be.Bridges' character as a children's author seems like a guy who has no patience for nonsense. He's everything you would expect from an eccentric artist, not afraid of roaming around the house in the nude and exposing his complex lifestyles towards his fresh new intern Eddie. Eddie is still green and inexperienced, and is used as nothing more than a designated driver, so that Ted may continue pursuit his sorrows in the drink. He shows no care in helping the young man in improving his writing skills. Marion seems to be living a double life. She has now become a stone-faced beauty of wonder where she touch no one and no one touches her. The other life comes out from a past which a myriad of framed photographs hanging across the corridor of her two sons when they were alive. This kind of grief is about as real as it can get as she can't get past the fact that her sons are dead and just doesn't want to let go. She enjoys the company of her four year old daughter, Ruth played by the younger sister and equally talented Elle Fanning. When she freely lets Eddie lure his sexual fascinations with her, it's like she is giving him his liberation as token of appreciation and nothing more. Which is contrary to Ted's seductive ways towards his model for hire Evelyn Vaughan which shifts from fondness to utter forcefulness.The final moments of the film is quite abrupt. Eddie starts to take a pivotal step towards his writing career. It's like everything he encountered has been forgotten as goes away at doodling words on a notepad at a framing shop.It's just those little nuances that make this film more than just the typical psychological drama. The sights, the smells, and the colours all add significance to this emotionally charged psychological drama. The title of the movie is a metaphor. It's the door that awaits you to world that's too grim to converse with even further. The door in the floor is symbol of a final resting place for the soul that one can not escape from. Where the world is a cruel place and the grief and pain is something that you must overcome, but can ever be completely erased.

I just watched this movie again tonight, years after seeing it when it first came out. So what is the meaning behind "The Door in the Floor" which child story writer Ted Dole refers to in his haunting tale? One major clue comes from the final scene of the movie when Jeff Bridges' character is left as the sole adult in his house. After playing an exhausting solo game of racketball, he breaks down emotionally. Only at that moment, do we discover that the door in the floor is not just a made up place in his children's book but a very real and secret place hidden deep inside his house. After struggling emotionally, he finally surrenders to the mysterious pull… slowly opens the door, crawls into the dark open space looking like a ghost and the door slowly closes on him, swallowing him whole. To me, the door in the floor is this ugly, horrific dark place some people have carved inside of them as a coping mechanism for whatever traumatic event they have endured. It is that place where they are alone with the pain and are confronted to the memories with no place to hide. I suppose some people would refer to it as post traumatic disorder. I find it fascinating that Ted's tale is told from the mother's perspective, and not the father's. This important detail to me demonstrates the untold, only evoked depth of his love and compassion for his wife as he chooses to focus on her pain (instead of his). In his tale, I believe he shows a clear understanding of what his wife has been going through the years and is still struggling with: The grieving mother of two dead sons haunted by her third child's mortality. Another important detail that strikes me is that in the tale, the mother opened the door but never actually went through it: instead, she closed the door, never to reopen it again. In the tale, her hair turned permanently white. This to me relates to his wife having lived through the trauma of the car accident first-hand and never being able to deal with and relate emotionally to that fatal day (turning to stone when she was asked how her sons died). Her decision to not go through the door in the floor has prevented her from moving on, she's simply been frozen in time and space since that horrible day. Jeff Bridges' character on the other hand has found a different coping mechanism. He too is struggling and suffering tremendously yet by acknowledging the door in the floor and visiting that dark place every now and then, he has been able to stay connected to the world around him (no matter how scandalous and outrageous his behavior might be at time). Excellent. Stunning and poignant piece of work.

The Door In The Floor was beautifully shot and edited, and put together with high production values - although someone spotted the boom mic in a few shots. The locations are used very well, you get a good feeling of the space. The soundtrack was awful, your usual orchestral Hollywood tripe.The acting was variable - Jeff Bridges's performance excellent, Basinger doesn't have much to do except staring blankly out to sea, and Foster woody and unconvincing. There isn't much character development, and the director gives no idea of the passing of time. Moodwise, it is a mixture of tragic and slapstick, which actually seems to work quite well - possibly down to Bridges.All in all, just about watchable if a bit miserable. Probably saved by Bridges.

Jon Irving is a marvelous American writer and his stories, although unique, bring us characters we can always associate with on some psychological and emotional level. "The Door in the Floor" is no exception.Based upon the first third of "A Widow for One Year", many viewers are upset that Ruth's storyline wasn't included. We all have to remember a simple thing: A book is a book and a movie is a movie. They are worlds apart in many ways. Keep that in mind and, hopefully, this will detract from any disappointment.The story is solid and intriguing, the characters are wonderfully flawed, and the acting is phenomenal. Most importantly, the symbolism and imagery are subtle, yet always present, which fully reveals William's and Irving's respect for intelligent audiences.This is a poignant and thought-provoking drama not to be missed.