The Door in the Floor **** (2004, Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, Jon Foster) – Classic Movie Review 1507

Writer-director Tod Williams’s 2004 drama about a disintegrating household sees Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger at their brilliant best as desperately sad, tragic parents unable to come to terms with the death of their two sons in a car smash.

Bridges plays a writer, famous children’s book author Ted Cole, who needs to hire a young assistant for a summer in the privileged beach community of East Hampton, New York. Along comes innocent, callow student Eddie O’Hare (Jon Foster), who soon shows he has a thing for Cole’s beautiful wife, sexy older woman Marion (Basinger). Meanwhile Bridges smoothes his troubled waters liberally with both booze and women. Foster’s Eddie becomes both a pawn and a catalyst in the eventual transformation of the couple’s lives.

John Irving’s best-selling novel A Widow for One Year is filmed with dazzling wit, style and emotional punch, as humour and tragedy mix devastatingly on the way to a clever ending. It’s a perfect movie.

Williams also wrote and directed The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998) and Paranormal Activity 2 (2010).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1507

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