The Door in the Floor

Jeff Bridges Director: Tod Williams Tod Williams

Overview

The best extra on the DVD release of Tod Williams' The Door in the Floor is a 15-minute featurette in which author John Irving goes into some detail about the differences between novels and movies. While some of what he says is fairly obvious, the author does offer some nuggets of wisdom that any writer should find helpful. The film itself is presented in a widescreen anamorphic transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. English and French soundtracks are rendered in Dolby Digital 5.1. The DVD also offers a commentary track recorded by Williams and a variety of people from his crew. He is full of praise for his actors. This is a solid release, but it should be made clear that those with an interest in reading the novel on which the film is based should do so before taking in the extra materials on this disc.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/14/2004
UPC:	0025192500022
Original Release:	2004
Rating:	R
Source:	Focus Features
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound]
Time:	1:51:00
Sales rank:	62,984

Special Features

Feature commentary with director Tod Williams and production team; "Author John Irving: From Novel to Screen"; Anatomy of a Scene; "The Making of the Door in the Floor"

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jeff Bridges	Ted Cole
Kim Basinger	Marion Cole
Jon Foster	Eddie O'Hare
Mimi Rogers	Eleanor Vaughn
Elle Fanning	Ruth Cole
Bijou Phillips	Alice
Louis Arcella	Eduardo Gomez

Technical Credits

Tod Williams

Tod Williams	Director,Screenwriter
Anne Carey	Producer
Michael Corrente	Producer
Eric Daman	Costumes/Costume Designer
Therese DePrez	Production Designer
Affonso Goncalves	Editor
Ann Goulder	Casting
Ted Hope	Producer
Amy J. Kaufman	Executive Producer
Nicholas Lundy	Art Director
Tod A. Maitland	Sound Editor
Roger Marino	Executive Producer
Marisa Polvino	Co-producer
Beth Amy Rosenblatt	Musical Direction/Supervision
Chip Signore	Asst. Director
Terry Stacey	Cinematographer
Marcelo Zarvos	Score Composer
John Irving	Source Author

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Main Titles
2. A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound
3. Marion, Waiting
4. A Masturbating Machine
5. Not So Fast, Abernathy
6. Come Hither...
7. The Door in the Floor
8. The Pawn
9. The Inadequate Lampshade
10. Nocturnal Animals
11. God Damn It, I Love This Song!
12. Leaving Long Island
13. Specific Details
14. Dumping Mrs. Vaughn
15. The Authority of the Written Word
16. Something Almost Biblical
17. A Motherless Child
18. The Leg
19. Down the Hatch
20. End Titles

Menu

Side #1 --
   Scenes
   Bonus Features
      Frame on the Wall: The Making of Door in the Floor
      Novel to Screen: John Irving
      Anatomy of a Scene
      Feature Commentary
         Feature Commentary With Writer/Director Tod Williams, Director of Photography Terry Stacey, Editor Affonso Gonçalves, Composer Marcelo Zarvos and Costume Designer Eric Daman: On
         Feature Commentary With Writer/Director Tod Williams, Director of Photography Terry Stacey, Editor Affonso Gonçalves, Composer Marcelo Zarvos and Costume Designer Eric Daman: Off
   Languages
      Spoken Languages: English 5.1
      Spoken Languages: Français 5.1
      Feature Commentary
         Feature Commentary With Writer/Director Tod Williams, Director of Photography Terry Stacey, Editor Affonso Gonçalves, Composer Marcelo Zarvos and Costume Designer Eric Daman: On
         Feature Commentary With Writer/Director Tod Williams, Director of Photography Terry Stacey, Editor Affonso Gonçalves, Composer Marcelo Zarvos and Costume Designer Eric Daman: Off
      Captioned for the Hearing Impaired: English
      Subtitles: Español
      Subtitles: Français
      Subtitles: None
   Play

Editorial Reviews

Adapted from a John Irving novel -- or rather, the first third of A Widow for One Year -- this provocative drama provides Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger the best roles they’ve had in years. Emotionally complex and, in spots, profoundly unsettling, The Door in the Floor tackles the dissolution of a troubled marriage with unusual intelligence and sophistication. Famous author Ted Cole (Bridges) and his wife, Marion (Basinger), have all the material comforts conducive to easy living, but they just aren’t getting along. Neither has ever really recovered from the death of their two sons in a car crash, and Ted copes with the diminution of Marion’s passion for him by engaging in a series of affairs. One summer, he hires a 16-year-old student named Eddie as an assistant, and the precocious teen immediately becomes attracted to Mrs. Cole -- who, in turn, is drawn to the boy because he resembles her oldest son. As presented by director Tod Williams, the story is rife with ambiguity; at one point it seems fairly obvious that Ted is pushing Marion to have an affair with Eddie, perhaps out of some cruel, sadistic fascination. Bridges plays the brilliant author as extremely manipulative, and therefore engenders little audience sympathy. Basinger, on the other hand, is achingly vulnerable as the emotionally wounded wife and mother who finds herself being drawn into an untenable relationship, partly out of sexual longing and partly out of an unhealthy attraction based on the boy’s resemblance to her dead son. There are no pat resolutions to the clearly defined narrative quandaries. While certainly not for all tastes, The Door in the Floor exhibits a sensibility that bears comparison to some of the best European-made dramas of recent years. It’s totally unlike any Hollywood film we’ve seen this year, an intellectually engaging slice of two very troubled lives.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Films adapted from novels have a tendency toward the Frankenstein-like messiness of stitched-together parts. The Door in the Floor is messy, but in a good way. Writer/director Tod Williams, who demonstrated a flair for this type of screwed-up family drama with his debut film, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, wisely chose to adapt only the first part of John Irving's novel A Widow for One Year. This allows him to take his time with the story, with enough space for the small but telling details that might be jettisoned in attempting to convey the entire work, which spans over three decades. The Door in the Floor essentially covers one summer in the lives of these characters, but it's an eventful summer, and the film manages to convey the novel's emotional complexity with a sharply witty script, with bright, open visuals that counterbalance the essential darkness and internality of the tale, and with fine performances. Unsurprisingly, Jeff Bridges is superb, and it's always gratifying to see him tackle a role this prickly, that works against the sense of comfort and ease he generally instills in an audience. The Door in the Floor is not about judgments of right and wrong, but about smart and tragically flawed human beings and how they deal with trauma and grief. The ending of the film is a bit too pat, suggesting a sense of closure that the novel obviously does not provide, but overall it is a fine work, and a step forward for a talented young filmmaker.

All Movie Guide - Josh Ralske

Surely the best movie yet made from Mr. Irving's fiction. It may even belong in the rarefied company of movies that are better than the books on which they are based.

New York Times - A.O. Scott

Bridges turns a two-dimensional image into a presence so vital, so filled with breath and blood, that you uneasily fall in love with his character and abandon all thought of the artifice that's brought it to life. Manohla Dargis

Los Angeles Times