Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR – Opening the door to life’s tragedies

byStaff writers
20 March 2005
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger
Director: Tod Williams
Rated: MA15+

THERE have been a number of versions of John Irving’s novels – Hotel New Hampshire, World According to Garp, Simon Birch.

Irving himself wrote the screenplay (and won an Oscar) for The Cider House Rules.

The Door in the Floor has received his blessing as a version of the first third of his novel, Widow for a Year.

This is the kind of film that is described as independent. It is not a studio film and it does not rely on a happy ending.

The focus of the film is a 16 year-old (a believable performance by Jon Foster) who spends a summer as an assistant to a celebrated writer of somewhat eerie children’s stories – like the story of the sound of someone trying not to make a sound.

The film ends in a squash court with the writer literally going down through the door in the floor.

The author and his wife have not recovered emotionally from the deaths of their sons in a car accident – and it is dramatically effective that we do not see the accident scene until the end of the film.

The writer has become hardened and is alienated from his wife who is less able to cope. He is dependent on the young man for typing, chores around the house and, especially, for driving.

In the meantime, the inexperienced youngster is infatuated with the wife. What follows is a sexual initiation, something of a blend of the quiet care of Tea and Sympathy and the exploitation by Mrs Robinson of The Graduate.

Related Stories

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

The writer, meantime, is involved in a grim affair with a woman he is sketching.

The description makes these goings-on sound sordid. In many ways they are. But that is not the whole point.

Traumatised people act in unpredictable and often destructive ways. This is clearly what is happening to these characters. The events are sometimes bizarre, but they need a moral and emotional sensitivity to the complexities rather than a righteous dismissal.

Jeff Bridges is the writer and gives yet another interesting and complex performance, a blend of the genial, the controlling, the desperate and the vicious.

Kim Basinger is the grief-stricken mother who leads on the willing young man.

Mimi Rogers has the difficult role of the artist’s model, victim of the writer’s degradation. The young daughter is played by Elle Fanning (younger sister of Dakota Fanning).

This is a film of moral dead ends and byways, where people are trapped, trap themselves and can escape only through their door in the floor.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS

Next Post

Bittersweet win for family to stay in Australia

Staff writers

Related Posts

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says
Faith

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

18 May 2022
Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says
World

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

18 May 2022
Next Post

Bittersweet win for family to stay in Australia

Feeding tube row a dangerous precedent

Plea for life of drug trafficker on death row

Popular News

  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI turned 95 on a ‘very happy’ day

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says
Faith

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

by CNS
18 May 2022
0

HOLINESS is possible, and the Catholic Church provides the tools for attaining it. That was the theme...

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

18 May 2022
Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

17 May 2022
Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

17 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping