Floored

With an emotional impact even more focused than the John Irving novel it's based on, "The Door in the Floor" perfectly strikes notes of love, grief, guilt and mistrust.

"Specific details." That's what makes a great writer great according to the grizzled Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges), a successful children's author and sometime pornographic artist speaking to his summer intern Eddie O'Hare (Jon Foster) off the coast of Long Island during one hazy Hamptons summer, a summer that will prove pivotal to both men in "The Door in the Floor."

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR

Written and directed by: Tod Williams.
Adapted from Adapted from by: John Irving.
Cast: Elle Fanning, Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, Jon Foster, Larry Pine, John Rothman, Harvey Loomis, Bijou Phillips, Mimi Rogers.
Cinematography: Terry Stacey.
Edited by: Affonso Gonalves.

Related links: Official site

Specific details such as a distant sounding car alarm; an unseen racquetball echoing off the deadening walls of a converted barn; a soft pink sweater worn that first day; the color and unambiguous smell of squid ink; and, although we're never quite served a close-up, many bare picture hooks left hanging from many bare walls. By turns it's these specific details that make writer/director Tod Williams's film (based on the best-selling novel "A Widow for One Year" by John Irving and named for one of his protagonist's juvenile publications) so special.

Minty O'Hare's 16-year-old son has come to work for Ted at a difficult time. A poseur artiste who pronounces himself "an entertainer of children who also likes to draw" and dresses and undresses with equal abandon, Ted and his longtime wife Marion (Kim Basinger) are separating. "Temporarily" according to Ted, who's initiating the split.

Devastated by the death of their two teenage sons, a resultantly near-comatose Marion has abandoned all hope of ever feeling alive again. Ted, partly in response and partly due to his being Ted, has taken to sleeping with the women he sketches (a gutsy Mimi Rogers plays his latest subject, Mrs. Vaughn) and Eddie, of course, soon becomes inappropriately infatuated with the fragile, beautiful Marion, beginning with her underwear.

Driving home one night Ted thanks Eddie for being so nice to Marion, and Eddie's guilty expression makes no secret of just how nice he's been to her (and she him). Recognizing this, Ted dutifully grinds Eddie to fine powder (his words) on the racquetball court. The unspoken word often speaks volumes in "The Door in the Floor"; it's a key to the film's peculiar power.

Adapting a voluminous John Irving tome for the screen is never an easy task since the author is well known for complex storylines ripe with richly drawn characters. In tackling Irving's 1998 novel, however, Williams has a distinct advantage since the book is structured as three distinct sections featuring daughter Ruth (nicely played here by Dakota Fanning's younger sister Elle) and the director elects to adapt the first third only, one that concentrates on the relationship between Ted, Marion, and Eddie. This allows the film to rise above its obvious pitfalls and emerge as a surprisingly intelligent rendition that, in addition, is beautifully photographed and sparingly scored.

Like the better big screen Irvings ("The World According to Garp" and "The Cider House Rules"), casting proves critical and all employed here are at the top of their game, including Oscar-worthy performances from Basinger and Bridges and a none-too-shabby one from Foster (Ben's younger sibling).

I've read the book and the film feels just right. It exquisitely establishes the time and the place; it paints flawed, troubled individuals with limited coping skills; it's patient, subtle, and restrained, enjoying the specific details of its own quieter, contemplative moments. And finally it devastates us, much as its protagonists, by the overwhelming power of grief.

JULY 19, 2004
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