The Door in the Floor (2004)

Jeff Bridges demonstrates once again that he is one of the finest actors in film. Ted Cole (Bridges, Seabiscuit, The Big Lebowski), a successful writer/illustrator of children's books, invites a young student named Eddie (Jon Foster) to be his assistant for a summer. Eddie doesn't realize he's being drawn into the middle of a dissolving marriage until Ted's wife Marion (Kim Basinger, L. A. Confidential) invites him into an affair--which Ted both condones and resents. Slowly, Eddie comes to understand the secrets that are tearing the marriage apart. Bridges never shows off; everything he does seems simple, natural, almost unavoidable, but it's also utterly watchable. Whether you like the movie will depend on whether you like John Irving (The Door in the Floor is based on part of his novel A Widow for One Year), but Bridges's performance is undeniable. Also featuring Mimi Rogers (The Rapture). --Bret Fetzer Amazon.com

Love It!

This is my favorite movie of all time and I do not care what anyone else says. It is great! It's very witty and entertaining, yet deep. There are little things I didn't pick up on the first time or two watching it and I have seen it TONS of times now and I love it. I'm also a fan of last scenes and I love the last scene in this one. Literally...the door in the floor. I don't get it, but I love it. Beautiful, beautiful movie! June 11, 2008

A poor copy, not a used original

The video came on time and undamaged. That was the only positive. This video is not a used original but a poor copy. I suppose that is the risk you take when you buy "so called used video"; some, like this one, turn out to be copies. I do not recommend buying this video from this source. May 26, 2008

Jeff the Empath

Jeff Bridges finally has a good, juicy role to sink his enormous acting chops into. Jeff is a funny actor, because if he doesn't have a good part or a solid project to bring out his Herculean talents, he tends to walk through a movie and be indistinguishable from any other actor, becoming a kind of non-entity (as happened with the execrable, New Age slop K-Pax, in which Spacey did his nice guy routine again). But when Bridges gets a role to suit him, such as The Fisher King, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Fearless, American Heart, or to a lesser degree Door, he carries the movie to another plateau altogether.

I first saw Jeff in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, back in my teenage Eastwood-mania days, and I still find it interesting to watch the movie and see how much more likeable and empathic Clint's acting is here than in any of his other films from the same period. From the start, Jeff Bridges had an easy affability, a lazy, laughing spontaneity, that made him both lovable and completely believable, and it's clear in this movie that Bridges' immense appeal rubs off on Clint, and that the relationship between the two men (a young drifter and a hardened criminal who team up on a heist) was reflected by that of the two actors making the movie (Bridges was just starting out, Clint, maybe 15 years older, was by then fully established).

My personal favorite Bridges role has got to be Baker Boys, however; in fact it may be my all-time favorite performance by any actor anywhere (De Niro's Travis Bickle and Pacino's Michael Corleone would be two others). Here Jeff, as the Jazz-loving, piano-playing half of a cheesy musical lounge duo, gets to act alongside his real-life brother Beau, and there is such a natural affinity between them (even when fighting) that the movie really flies. (It was written and directed by Steve Kloves, who along with Keith Gordon may be the most underrated American filmmaker around.) When Bridges is at his best, the movie enters into magikal realms of empathy and humor that few other movies even seem aware exist. It doesn't hurt having Michelle Pfeiffer along for the ride, either. She and Bridges make probably the most convincing and achingly doomed lovers ever seen on the American screen.

Door in the Floor, directed by Tod Williams (The Adventures of Sebastian Cole) from a book by John Irving (Williams wisely only adapted the first third of the novel), is an original and entertaining work. Though perhaps in the end it is a little removed from its characters and hence slightly less than fully involving, it at least avoids the sentimental pitfalls that some of the other Irving adaptations have fallen into. Above all, it has Jeff Bridges as the eccentric, philandering painter/children's writer, Ted Cole. As Bridges plays him, Cole has hidden reservoirs of pain lurking beneath his abrasive charm. Cole has an irresitable (seeming) indifference to what people think of him, and there are few things more charming in a movie protagonist than not giving a damn about anyone. Although he has been written as something of a fraud and a jerk, Bridges gives Cole the freedom to create his own justification in our minds: he is a law (and a laughter) unto himself.

Bridges clearly revels in the task of creating Cole, and the delight he takes in fleshing out an already meaty role and making it his own fills every scene he's in to the brim. American movies rarely offer a greater high than Jeff Bridges on a roll, and Door in the Floor--though perhaps less haunting than it wants to be--offers just that, a chance to see America's finest, most empathic and most underappreciated screen actor flex his muscles. March 4, 2008

Mimi Rogers - Mmmmmmm

Forget the plot. Mimi Rogers, in all her "glory", appears in this film. Add to that a love tryst between a teenage boy and Kim Basinger. Worth the money. December 14, 2007

Horrible.

The Door in the Floor is the worst film of 2004. I was expecting a seductive and tension-filled drama but all I got was adults acting like petty children. Kim Basinger performance is so wooden and Jeff Bridges is just terrible. Elle Fanning is the only actor who shows promise (the younger sis of Dakota Fanning). This film comes off as a heart tugging drama and then all of sudden tries to be a dark comedy. This film is awful, awful, awful. Stay away from this muddled downer! December 12, 2007

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