Last night Jimbo and his girlfriend rented the DVD The Door in the Floor. I liked it. Jimbo’s girlfriend said it was a movie we wanted to see at the theater, but either it didn’t show in any of our local theaters or it played for too short a time and we missed it. She tells me I’m smart and I can remember things she can’t, but in this case, I was the victim of a moment of seniority, and I just nodded my head and said, “Oh, yeah.”
Anyway, the movie is about a famous writer of children’s stories, played by Jeff Bridges and his wife, played by Kim Basinger, and an aspiring writer, played by Jon Foster, who comes to intern with Bridges during his summer vacation from school. The title comes from a children’s book Bridges has written and illustrated, which we see Bridges read to an audience as slides of the illustrations are shown. The story is about a mother who lives in a cabin that has a door in the floor. Her unborn child is trying to decide whether he wants to be born into a world with a door in the floor. The story tells how some children came by one day and went down through the door, never to be seen again. The mother had looked through the door and heard horrible noises and knew there was a terrible place on the other side of the door. Eventually, the child decides to be born.
The children’s story is sort of an allegory for the movie. Bridges and Basinger had two teenaged sons who were killed in an auto accident during a trip to a ski resort, when their car was rear-ended and pushed into the path of a snowplow that cut the car in half. One of the boys was driving and the other in the front seat. Bridges and Basinger were in the back seat, after spending the day in the bar at the ski resort, too inebriated to drive. The front half of the car was demolished by the snowplow; the back half survived, along with the two back-seat passengers, intoxicated but unhurt. Near the end of the movie, Bridges tells the story of the accident to Foster, and, of course, punctuates the story with the usual “if I would have” things he could have done in advance to prevent the accident.
Bridges and Basinger have a young daughter they conceived after the accident to reprise their family, but even though they lived through it, their marriage has been dealt a fatal blow by the accident, and during the summer of internship of Foster, they are separated and alternate days in their rural house and in an apartment in town. We find that the reason that Foster has been offered his opportunity, is primarily because he reminds Bridges of one of his late sons and because Bridges needs someone to drive him places.
Bridges has a squash court in the upper level of his barn where he never loses and is the admitted master of the domain. There’s a “dead spot” in the floor, and he is apparently the only one that knows how to deal with it. The first few days of the summer, Foster develops an attraction for Basinger and he also becomes “master of his own domain,” until Basinger walks in on him in a moment of autoeroticism. After that uncomfortable incident, Foster and Basinger begin an affair that lasts throughout the summer, while it becomes apparent that Bridges is also having an affair and looking for opportunities for even more.
Basinger becomes almost catatonic at the mere discussion of the accident, but Bridges seems to be detached and doesn’t outwardly dwell on the tragedy, but it becomes obvious that the two simply have different ways of dealing with the situation and that it controls both of their lives. They are both living in a hell from which they will not escape.
I thought the ending of the movie was particularly poignant. Bridges is on his squash court, the place he is most comfortable, practicing by himself. When he is finished he sits down to rest near the “dead spot” and then opens the door to leave the court. The door is in the floor. He leaves the court, through the door in the floor, and back into the terrible place on the other side of the door.
This is a dark movie, with some nudity. It’s not for the kids, but it is definitely worth renting and seeing, if you are not needing some laughs, at that moment.
In Jimbo’s world we like a movie that makes us think a little, and this one fit’s the bill.
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