The Unseen Movie Review

The Door in the Floor

Author John Irving, on whose novel A Widow for One Year this film is based, has seen several of his books turned into films over the years, the best known of which are probably the Robin Williams vehicle The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules, for which Michael Caine won an Oscar a few years ago. He’s not as well known in this country as his native America, yet has a strong pedigree for turning out unusual yet engaging tales combining high drama, deep emotion and often broad comedy.

The main problem with Irving’s novels, for those who don’t quite get them, is their often cloying sentimentality. Thankfully here director Tod Williams, a relative newcomer aided by his own well-adapted screenplay, manages to avoid the worst of Irving’s excesses while remaining true to the source material. This has been hailed in some quarters as by far the best adaptation of an Irving novel to date – which, considering the fact that most of his books’ previous screen outings have garnered multiple Oscar nominations, is no mean feat.

Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, both in roles which could revitalise their somewhat flagging careers, play husband and wife Ted and Marion Cole, still trying to come to terms with the car crash which killed their teenage sons some years earlier. Despite the presence of a new daughter, the couple decide to separate just as a young student comes to spend the summer as writer/artist Ted’s assistant. At first worshipping Ted, the young man soon sees him for the vain semi alcoholic he is, and begins to get somewhat closer to his boss’ equally traumatised wife.

This could very easily have turned into a rather unimaginative take on the central ideas of the classic The Graduate, with Kim Basinger in the Mrs Robinson role. Thanks in part to director Williams’ ability to leap nimbly and almost imperceptibly between melodrama, comedy and farce, some great cinematography and – perhaps most importantly – a powerhouse central performance from Jeff Bridges, the numerous pitfalls of both the original material and the danger of simply repeating earlier films is entirely avoided.

No less an authority than the New York Times has described this performance by Bridges, whose last good outing was in 1998’s The Big Lebowski, as “perhaps the wittiest and richest piece of screen acting by an American man so far this year”. Not for the first time with an Irving adaptation, there are rumours of potential Oscar nods. Thanks in part to Bridges, the rest of the cast - and the film as a whole - are lifted above the overly emotional guff which, in less capable hands, this material could so easily have become.

It is a rare gift to be able to combine sentimentality and humour while dealing with such serious themes as bereavement and the breakdown of a marriage. The fact that, to boot, Jeff Bridges has helped create one of the most complex, sympathetic yet monstrous characters to have graced cinema screens in many a year boosts this from a good film to a great one.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM