I’ve said
it before, and I’ll say it again. Disappointment sucks. There are movies
that viewers will have high expectations for, and be let down by, from the
first frame of video until the last. However, The Door in the Floor
doesn’t fall into this category. It is an impressive film from the get-go,
boasting strong acting and a bold story. And it works, for about an hour.
But, during its final fifty minutes, the picture experiences a steady
decline, and winds up unsatisfying. I was hoping for a door to appear in the
isle-way floor of the theatre that I could hide under, until the credits
began to role. The final product let me down so much, in fact, that I wanted
to curl up into a ball and shield my eyes from it, on occasion. The third
act isn’t so much bad as it is anticlimactic, but, nevertheless, left me
feeling almost entirely empty.
Jeff Bridges shines in the best performance in the
film, as Ted Cole, a writer of bizarre childrens’ books, which are inspired
by dysfunctional situations, to say the least. His work has a following, but
it is odd, and dark, considering the obvious target audience. The pictures
in the books, which illustrate the typically one-hundred-word-pages, are
derived from Ted’s monotonous depiction of his naked, women models. One
could imagine why his mind is responsible for many problems in his
home-life. He and his wife, Marion (Kim Bassinger), are about to split up.
That’s not to say that she doesn’t have her fair share of perverted quirks,
too. This only makes life tougher for their daughter, Ruth (Elle Fanning,
who I cannot believe was allowed to participate in witnessing the film’s
more risqué scenes, on camera).
The film takes place during a summer in which
Eddie O'Hare (Jon Foster) comes to work for Ted, as his assistant. A high
school student, Eddie would love to be a writer in the future. From the
beginning, he maturely sees the experience as one in which he will learn
many things about penning books. Instead, he is bombarded by just the
opposite, as he enters a world of shock, that of the Coles. While he is able
to take care of Ruth better than both of her parents, the troubled couple is
hard to handle, for him. All of the chores that he must do for Ted are
primarily busy-work; the main thing he must do is drive his “teacher” around
town, (Ted lost his drivers license three months prior). None of these
entail criticisms or inspiration for Eddie’s own writing. Even worse, he
begins to have an affair with Marion, and they become rather obsessed with
the sexual aspect of their uncanny relationship. How does The Door in the
Floor come to a conclusion? It misguidedly centers on a car crash, which
killed Marion and Ted’s two sons, and relies upon the incident to tie up all
of its loose ends. But, it ends up creating more plot-holes; the movie could
practically be mistaken for a piece of Swiss cheese.
I suppose The Door in the Floor’s failures
are a result of its own ambition. This is just one occasion in which an
art-house film tries to be too many things, and ends up having to drop too
many of the elements it’s juggling, as a result. Instead of just focusing on
two or three stories, it pushes its luck, by incorporating five major ones
into the central plot. Ted and Marion’s marriage problems, Ruth’s
development as a result, Marion and Eddie’s romance and its effects, Ted’s
writing and drawing compulsions, and the practiced relationship between
employers and their clientele are all essential matters in the film’s
progression. How are all of these studies supposed to be concluded by
a mere explanation of a haunting event in the main family’s past, to a boy
who has gotten to know them all too well? More importantly, is there any
possible way such a gigantic task could’ve been completed?
Tod Williams, who wrote and directed The Door
in the Floor, is essentially a no-name. He made another movie called
The Adventures of Sebastain Cole, a few years back, which I had never
heard of, before I looked into his track record. For the most part, Williams
is able to carry this film just fine. However, with the beautiful opening,
and engrossing ideas involved in it, The Door in the Floor should’ve
been much better than it turns out to be. However, audiences who would like
to attend a thoughtful, slow-moving, atmospheric picture will find
themselves with few better options this weekend than this picture. It is
ultimately a letdown, and some may refer to it as ridiculous and perverted,
but even so, it is a functioning piece of art. Pictures that belong in such
a category are all too rare nowadays, and usually always, if, in this case,
barely, merit a look.
-Danny, Bucket Reviews (8.8.2004)
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